Out for a walk with the EP2. Square lovers rejoice.

    A tree along the Austin hike and bike trail.  Just south of downtown.  EP2 with kit lens.

So, I mentioned that I really love the square.  The Olympus EP2 gives me back the square with elegance and ease.  I am satisfied with the camera.  I'll have to leave off my tests with portraits; it seems all the usual suspects actually had other things to do today.  Bereft of human models I took off on a walk around downtown.  I know it won't sound heroic to my friends in the frozen wastelands to the north but it was a chilly 31 degrees (f) when I left my car and started across the pedestrian bridge into downtown.

Here's a link to a small gallery of images from the morning:  morning with my square camera.

I set the new camera to mostly neutral settings.  Large SF Jpeg.  Color natural.  Aspect ratio: 6x6.  Single AF, etc. No more or less sharpening, contrast or saturation than the defaults.  I look through the viewfinder and see an wonderfully framed image with a bit of black on either side.  I can toggle through the "info" button until I get to screen with no numbers, letters or symbols on it and I'm free to compose unencumbered.

The camera is so small and discreet that everyone takes me for a tourist.  At times I feel like a tourist in my own life but I'm sure my mental health professional friends would label that as disassociative and worry.  Instead I'll say that I love cruising around the same downtown I've walked through almost weekly for 32 years.  I love to see what's new and who's hanging out at the coffee shops.  Lately we've seen some upscale stuff on the main drag from the state capital.  A Patagonia shop opened its doors.  There are three new restaurants.  A state office building is being rehabbed for commercial use. Downtown has two more steak houses.

I don't really know what to say about the camera.  I never had a missed focus.  If I needed exposure compensation it was usually on the order of +1/3 stop.  I tried out the ienhance setting in the colors menu and the tree above is from that group of frames.  I find the lens pretty sharp wide open.  The shutter, once locked in, is pretty fast.  In all you'd have to be a bit clumsy to mess up with this camera.

But for me, the ability to compose in the square with such a nice viewfinder is a treat over all else.  More to come after I get the studio thing figured out.  As you probably know, the finder sits in the hot shoe and the hot shoe is the only way to trigger any sort of flash.  Hello tungsten lights and HMI's.  More to report as I live with the camera.  Raw info:  272 shots with one battery, full time  EVF, and 31-38 degrees over the course of three hours.  Kit zoom lens.

A short blog about why I think the Olympus EP2 is great.

This image was shot with a Hasselblad Camera and a 150mm Lens.  I like it because it is square, black and white and the lighting is fun.  What's this got to do with the tiny Olympus EP2?  Read on.


When I bought the e30 SLR camera I was excited about being able to choose a different aspect ratio.  The ratio I shot with for twenty odd years was that of the medium format square.  Called 6x6.  I love composing portraits in the square and one of the things I never liked about the transition to digital many years ago was the cold hard abandonment of divergent aspect ratios.  With 3:2 based systems everything became the 35mm look that I had consciously moved away from decades ago.

But the way the aspect ratio option was done in the e30 only really worked if you were shooting in the live view mode.  The time delay using live mode in an slr with a mirror was just too long.  Not being able to compose at eye level was just too different.  I could live with it when doing still life and landscape but....I don't do still life and landscape very often.  And when I do it's for money not for joy.  The joy comes from shooting portraits.

So, along comes the little black EP2 and it offers an electronic viewfinder.  That's its one major improvement over the earlier EP1.  But along with the EVF I get actual square aspect ratio in an eye level finder!  The joy!  And it works well.  The square factors out to about a 9 megapixel camera which is more than enough for me.

Once I set the camera into the monochrome mode and enabled the green "filter" I was in heaven.  I'm still in heaven.  Now I have the digital camera I always wanted at a very reasonable $1100.  This is my portrait, street, event, anything that doesn't require flash camera.  So far the files are looking good.  When I something half as good as the Hasselblad shot I posted above I'll do a more in-depth review and post it here.  I'm in the "breaking in" process right now.  Stay tuned.

Tomorrow I get the MMF-1 and we go to town shooting some video with the 35-100mm f2 lens.  Creamy out of focus and lots of juicy sharpness in the same frame.  New chapter of the digital revolution here we come!

Have fun shooting.

Breaking the self fulfilling prophecy of a "bad year"

For Zachary Scott Theater.

Each of us looks at our daily life through the layers of our past and the constant static of random and chaotic information from outside our rational process.  Our memory of past occurrences obscures the real pattern of the present.  How many times this year have I heard photographers say,  "The whole industry is devastated and it's never coming back!"?  But aren't new photographs being made every day?  Negativity and news reports lead one to believe that everyone is unemployed, losing their jobs, their life's savings and their homes.  Economist tell us that we'll never regain the spending power we had in the 1980's and 1990's.

But what is true?  How much of this is random, unrelated static?  How fearful should we be?  Well, all economics, like all real estate, is local.  In Austin, Texas the unemployment rate is around 7% but the unemployment rate at the height of the boom years hovered around 4%.  So 3% is the number directly affected by this downturn in my metro area.  The other 93% of people still have their jobs.  Still get a pay check, still buy groceries and pay rent or mortgages.  I know the numbers are different in other parts of the country but in many places similar statistics prevail.

When I read the paper or watch the news things seem horrible.  Random killings, earthquakes, storms, wars.  But locally?  Nothing.  Ribbon cuttings, petty embezzlements, Christmas tree lightings, appeals for charities.

How does this all relate to the business of being a photographer?  Surely I'm not telling you anything new about the nature of anxiety and the news.

Okay.  Here's what I've been thinking about lately.  It's been a tough year.  The "low hanging fruit" disappeared from the trees.  Belts have been tightened, even if only in anticipation of a whole scale collapse that will probably never come.  Budgets have been slashed.  All the cliches.

So, every photographer (every business) has a choice of how to approach the change in market dynamics.  Some will theorize that this is a year in which nothing will happen.  These photographers choose to sandbag the windows and retreat into their bunkers, intent on husbanding their resources, for the time in the future in which they anticipate that the clouds will part and the economic engine will re-fire and they'll stand ready to reap the rewards.  They're keeping their powder dry.  And while they're keeping their powder dry life goes on without them.

The opposite choice is to go out and make the connections and work with what's being presented by your universe.  Accept less glamorous jobs.  Make new friends.  Show new work.  You only get one life and if you hide away in your bunker you're just wasting your time.

The solution to the retreat of low hanging fruit is to get a taller ladder.  Throw a wider net.  Stay connected.  When it all works out you don't have to worry about timing the market.  You'll already be enmeshed in the middle of it.

I've spent the year trying to stay in touch.  Working on my own fun projects.  Spending money on cool stuff when opportunity knocked.  Writing blogs.  Reaching out. Teaching. Writing books.  Shooting smaller projects.  Planning for bigger projects.  Having more lunches with friends. Getting the important stuff right.

When the market comes back I hope I barely notice because I'll be submerged in the process.

Case in point:  I have some friends who have seen a few(financially)  rough years.  One of them had the opportunity to travel in Europe as part of a speaking tour.  While it didn't make economic sense for them at the moment they pulled their kids out of school, took some vacation time,  spent the money and took a fabulous trip for two weeks.  Why?  It made emotional sense.  Kids grow up.  Time won't stand still.  The money is less important than the shared experience.  Did they have some fear about taking the risk?  Yes.  Was it worth it?  You'd have to ask them but from the smiles on their faces I would say......without a doubt.  They acted.  They resisted paralysis.  They risked. They won.

I look back at this bad year.  What do I see?  Devastation and ruin?  No.  We made it through.  We're still paying our bills.  Clients still call on the phone (but mostly they e-mail).  I've written another book.  I've shot some fun images.  I spent the year having fun with my family.  We learned to enjoy new stuff.  It's all a wild adventure.  I feel like we won too.

Was it a bad year or did we just make less money?  Can we separate the nonsense that the photo industry is falling apart from the temporary shortfall in the economy?  If we can then we all win.