“We had the TOOLS, we had the TALENT!”——Ghostbusters (1984)

By MICHAEL PERKINS

THE CRY OF VICTORY BY EGON AND COMPANY when the dreaded Sta-Puf Marshmallow Man was defeated could easily be the enthusiastic “Yes!” uttered by many a photographer, once a stubborn technical problem has finally been solved and something like a usable picture results. The struggle is real, and it’s often just as sloppy and gooey as slaying a giant s’more. Being unable to nail an image through a failure of either ability or gear(or both) is as haunting as, dare I say it, a ghost, and exorcising the little sucker can be a true thrill.

One of the personal ghosts inhabiting my brain since 2011 was born the first time I stepped inside the legendary Hotel del Coronado, the lush 1880’s vacation spot in San Diego that stood in for a Florida resort in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959). The brilliant sunshine found just outside, on the joint’s sun porch, becomes a dim memory as soon as you step inside the lobby’s dark, wooded depths, a real catacomb of deeeeep shadow where light (and far too many photographs) goes to die. One look at my first attempt to extract something out of the murk, way back then, tells it all. The camera was a Nikon D60, a basic entry-level DSLR with a 10mp crop sensor and a fairly low ceiling for ISO. Exhibit “A”:

2011: Hotel del Coronado, San Diego, CA. f/2.2, 75mm, 1/60s., ISO 400. Shot on full auto.

Yeah, painful, innit? Now, jump forward about four cameras and fourteen years to my Nikon Z5 full-frame mirrorless, and, well, we almost have a fighting chance. Exhibit “B”:

Returning to the scene of the crime in 2025, and shooting manually. f/2.8, 28mm, 1/250s., ISO 2500.

Certainly, to extend the Ghostbuster metaphor, the “tools” are different; technology marches on. But the “talent”, if that’s not too obnoxious a word, has moved forward a bit as well. I am quite literally not the same photographer I was then, which makes sense, because I only had one direction I could go. If I still couldn’t make this picture by now, I should be spending my time planting zinnia seeds in the back yard or something. So what’s the pitch here? Something on the order of the old saw “never stop shooting”. It’s a musty, dusty, hackneyed slogan, but it just happens to be true. Make it til you make it right.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

THE FUTURIST JOHN NESBITT, in his classic book 1982 Megatrends, made a solid point about how humans adapt to rapid progress; that is, how they maintain their equilibrium in the face of accelerating change. He coined the phrase “high tech, high touch”, a term that defined a kind of spring forward /fall back cadence in modern life. In Nesbitt’s analysis, people who become swamped by overwhelming “high tech” revert back to the comfort of more tactile experiences from previous times, embracing the comfort of “high touch”.

It’s still a good explanation for the tug of war in photography between the “hands on” warmth of analog and the “all things are possible” allure of digital. We find ourselves, with present tools, going all the way to perfection, and then back again. And then back again and then back again.

An early Technicolor camera, of the same typed used to film The Wizard Of Oz.

A recent video on cinematography in movies put forth the idea that today’s films don’t look as “cinematic” as features from pre-digital times, that the very idea of technically removing flaws or inconsistencies from the exposure and lighting of movies makes them look somewhat lifeless, so evenly perfect as to be sterile. The creators of the video drew an especially stark comparison between the lush, tonally rich look of 1939’s The Wizard Of Oz versus the somewhat desaturated, somewhat lifeless look of 2024’s Wicked. Are we merely suffering a fit of nostalgia, or is there actually something that today’s tech is over-polishing, over-supervising images for today’s market, whereas the “flaws” of earlier photographers somehow remain alluring, even beloved?

Before you struggle to answer those questions, a caution: your answers are only your answers. What digital offers for some can seem seem like the ultimate perfection of all past problems, while, for others of us, the problems themselves, from tonal balance to lighting for effect, contain a way to stamp your personal style on something that might otherwise be sterile. Everyone who makes an image decides where to plot their location on the line between “high tech” and “high touch”, deciding how much perfection is just enough, or too much. Photographs need a healthy mixture of “wizard” and “ahhhs”.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

ONE OF THE GREAT LIES OF OUR AGE is that being tethered to the internet via a phone constitutes something called “connectedness”. In fact, locking our gaze onto screens is a symptom of seeking connection, not necessarily finding it. Instead of focusing on the life within ourselves, we are now turned eternally outward, seeing what else is out there, or, worse yet, what might be happening without us.

This condition explains why our street images are now swamped with pictures of people staring into devices, wishing themselves somewhere else….or, worse yet, terrified that they might be in this life alone. Shooting on a street used to mean catching people staring off or fixating on something within their immediate world, in a way that often underscored their isolation. We couldn’t possibly know what was on their minds, but that was the point. In trying to make pictures that posited a theory about what that was all about, we imbued our informal candids with power, even mystery.

Fast forward to today, when using a camera to catch a person alone, in a moment of isolated contemplation, perhaps casting their gaze on something distant or illusory, is increasingly difficult. I sometimes think that the only truly honest street work is our depictions of just how isolated we really are, despite our instinctual gravitation toward the black hole of “connectedness”. I make a diligent search for the unguarded instant, the temporary snatches of complete “alone times”. That’s when the impassive mask of false engagement shows itself. And sometimes, the snap of a shutter reveals it before the screens beckon once more, and we again submerge.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

AS IT WRITE THIS, THE HIT TV SERIES SEVERANCE has, beyond its compelling depiction of a dystopian hellscape, sparked many conversations about what’s come to be called the “work-life balance”, that elusive equilibrium between what we find necessary and what we consider essential about our existence. Admittedly, it would be hard to find a single person alive in these days that has not actively worried about getting that teeter-totter equation correct, or at least close. One corrective force that we should always celebrate in doing so is creativity.

Photography, like any other creative enterprise, is an attempt by the inner spirit to exert some kind of control over our view of the world, or even to actively prescribe for it. Making an image is therefore an affirmation of the self, an insistence that we, as individuals, can order at least a small part of the universe in the way that we desire. To correct not only the work-life imbalance but the horror-delight imbalance. Art is a needed counterweight against despair, and the best thing about it is that adjusting that weight is within the means of anyone.

These are the times that try men’s souls, goes the saying. The phrase always sounds so fatalistic, but, in the work of creating art, we do “try”, and perfect, and refine our souls. We decide, purposefully, to shine, and to imbue other things or people with that selfsame glow. A photograph is a way of resetting the terms under which we engage life, no less than poetry, literature, or music. It is a way of viewing all the hardship, grief and trauma of being alive, in this or any age, and adding two words: yes, but……

It’s a priceless process.

Coordinating the hand and the eye is the way art is executed. Making a photograph concerts that two-way connection into a three-legged stool by incorporating the heart. That’s the solid foundation of art, for survival of any kind. Generate a picture and you generate hope.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

ONE OF THE FIRST BENEFITS, IN THE NINETEEN CENTURY, OF THE NEW ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY, was in providing a visual connection between disparate peoples around the globe. In the age of the steamship, long before mass media had annihilated space and time, huge parts of the world were complete mysteries to other parts of it. We had literally no graphic evidence of what much of our planet, as well as the things in it, looked like. Photographs provided a revolutionary kind of connective tissue.

In our present age, we can mistakenly assume that everything has been photo-documented; labeled, archived, identified, covered by oceans of images. And yet there are gaps, vast canyons of things we do not comprehend visually. This is increasingly the case in our widening estrangement from the natural world. The data on visits to monuments, state and national parks, and other scenic wonders are impressive, until you measure them against how much of nature no one has seen, or have only experienced second-hand. This, in the twenty-first century, charges photography with what can only be called a sacred mission; to reacquaint us with the parts of our world which are thrillingly alive, but toward which we have learned to turn a blind eye.

Can’t we all just get along? Cormorants and pelicans share a California seal sanctuary, 2025.

My own journey in this regard accelerated years ago, when my love of photography was paired with a growing interest in birds, and then, in turn, was linked to an examination of how birds and their environments connected with all other living things. It sounds absurdly simple, but, the fact is that, had birds not pulled me into their world, I might never have visited the physical places where I have now also developed a sense of connection between birds and all other elements of the natural world.

This, then, is my dream for photographers in our time, an age in which public lands have already been plundered and politicized for private profit, an era in which more and more extinction and threat make documentation of our environment absolutely essential, both for our own appreciation of it in the present and as an invaluable document against the losses of the future. Our cameras are the eyes of the planet, more than at any other time in our history. Images create linkage, and the task of re-introducing ourselves to nature is beyond urgent. We cannot protect what we do not know. See, and know more.

“I am sort of a spy..”—-Vivian Maier

By MICHAEL PERKINS

THERE IS AN IRISH STREET PHOTOGRAPHER that I occasionally see on a favorite photo-sharing site that may be the most unabashed eavesdropper I’ver ever encountered. He only shoots with a telephoto, always from a very long and safe distance, and his entire output consists of unposed candids of passersby. He finds them in shoppes, at fairs and markets, waiting on buses, whatever. The images usually show the complete upper bodies of his subjects, but often they are merely headshots. His passion is the unguarded moment, the sudden revelation of humanity when the mask of civilization slips a tad. In this he is not unique; many street shooters focus on such studies. However, it is nearly 100% of his output, and, since he posts so frequently, the viewer is liable to witness many hits among his misses.

Now, I leave it to you to discern the ethics of merely spying on passersby in pursuit of some kind of enlightenment. I myself give in to the urge now and then (as seen here), and I regularly argue whether this qualifies me as investigator or sneak-thief. Perhaps a bit of both. Shooting on the fly while a human interaction is ongoing certainly records the complete gamut of emotion, and that in itself can be hypnotic. But why? Is our understanding of our own secret selves somehow enhanced by looking over the shoulder of others’ lives? There have been enough debates about this one aspect of street work to fill up the Library of Congress.

Sometimes it’s a single shot that seems revelatory. Other times, as seen here, a sequence of shots may have a certain allure. Shooting in burst mode can be a bit like making a very short movie and viewing it a frame at a time on a film editor, like the ancient Movieola editors. And then there is the question every photographer must answer. Is more really more, and, if so, more of what? I find I tire when a shooter’s work is totally composed of random candids. I would feel either stuck or lazy or both if that was all I shot, but everyone to their own style. I do recognize that other people’s lives are occasionally fascinating, but I have still to explain why that is.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

ONE OF THE GREATEST LEGACIES of the first two hundred years of photography has been the ability of images to be either anchored to, or completely thrown clear of, the literal world. Pictures may have been originally made to document, or prove, or demonstrate elements of reality, to preserve time in ways previously impossible. However, they soon revealed the photographer’s urge to interpret, not merely set things down on salted paper. This was the creative instinct, the demand of the individual to see life in distinctive and unique ways, commenting, rather than merely cataloging.

There has never been a better time to be a photographer. Never.

Phantom Squadron, 2024

This is not because of any one technical development or scientific breakthrough. It’s because the accumulated power of the billions of images made every day has removed the last few barriers to photography as an art. Given the flood tide of choices we enjoy at present, we can’t even agree on what constitutes a “camera” anymore. Devices don’t matter except that they sometime free us in other ways, like allowing us to shoot anything, anywhere, and make it look like whatever we want. Even without the influence of A.I., which like any development, will either be a miracle or a curse, depending on the user, we are already virtually unhindered in being able to technically render any kind of image we can imagine. Our eyes must be master of our tools, to be sure, but there is no longer any limit on what those tools can be.

All of which begs the question, why does it matter whether we reveal how we created a given shot? One, the only thing that really matters is the result, and nothing about a strong picture can be made any stronger by explaining that it was made by using X and Y to accomplish Z (so throw away the captions on 99% of the pictures hanging on museum walls). Two, even if we share the absolute step-by-step “recipes” on how a given shot was made, the execution of that recipe will still vary from artist to artist. We simply can’t create a uniform version of either reality or unreality. Which is to say, as we always do in these pages, feel more than you think. Convey rather than record. Always be shooting, and always ask yourself about how much of you makes it into the final picture. What else is there?

By MICHAEL PERKINS

GLASS IS BOTH A REVEALER AND CONCEALER in photography, acting in equal amounts as truth-teller and liar. Light neither bounces perfectly off a glass surface nor permits 100% transparency, and so individual shooters have to strike an arbitrary and individual balance between seeing into and seeing onto. This artistic see-saw is one of the most intriguing calculations anyone can make with a camera.

Even if it were possible, optically, say, for a window on a building to allow us to only see in or only see reflections of what is behind the camera, the mixture of see-in/see-on would still be very seductive. The pioneering French photographer Eugene Atget, in documenting shop windows around Paris in the 1800’s, was also documenting the texture of street life in the city as it was reflected in those windows. And over the subsequent centuries, what a certain type of viewer might see as an error went on to become a standard form of commentary by succeeding generations of photographers, from Garry Winogrand to Robert Frank to Walker Evans and beyond. Certainly, this idea that a window is both portal and mirror caught on so universally that it has become something of an urban cliche. But, of course, things become cliches at first because they are undeniably true.

Just as Jerry Seinfeld once said that “men aren’t interesting in what’s on TV; they’re interested in what else is on TV”, I’m never interested in just looking in or out of a window. Noticing, and exposing for, and composing for, what else is impacting that window keeps me interested. If nothing else, showing the world beyond the glass plane, even when reversed and distorted, contextualizes the story that a peek through a window only begins. For me, it’s like imagining a really strong beginning sentence, and then realizing that, based on where I place punctuation or accent marks, I can steer that sentence to deeper meaning. Clear as glass.