Why Gear Does and Doesn’t Matter

What is the need for the biggest and best most expensive gear? I was out and about this weekend and saw protesters for the Black Lives Matter movement in my town and made photographs in both digital format with a Nikon D610 and 35mm and 120 film in a Leica M3 and a Rolleiflex 2.8C.

The film photographs were limited to a normal lens view, since I only had a 50mm Summarit on the Leica, and the 80mm f2.8 on the Rolleiflex.

The digital photographs were made mainly with a Nikon 70-300mm f4-5.6 AF-D, a non-pro, slow zoom lens that I keep in the car. I didn’t bring a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 to the shoot, which is a constant-aperture pro lens. I used what I had. That Nikon 70-300mm sells for $95 used at B&H photo–it’s not an expensive lens.

This link [kennethwajda.com/blmlongmont/] will show you the gear doesn’t matter.

It’s not about the gear, but the story.  Content is everything in photography.

I believe just like screenwriters want magic formulas to writing a great script (hint, there is no formula, no magic secret), photographers want a camera that guarantees them best results, and for a lot of people, it’s more fun to do camera tests than shoot photographs.

So, for some, photography is a technology hobby. Sort of a science–“What can I get that will do something so perfectly if I pixel-peep into the corners?”

And for others, photography is a creative expression. A communication form–“What story can I tell with this image?”

It’s not about the gear. You and I have all the gear we need. And a $95 lens can do plenty, with a worthwhile subject to photograph. We just have to go out and make the pictures.

Here’s a link to the film photographs, too.

Happy shooting. Here’s to good light!

Editorial Truth and Public Trust

While digital photography and technology are here to stay, TRUST is the one thing of utmost importance for news/media companies to maintain as we enter a new world of Deepfakes.

[Deepfakes (a portmanteau of “deep learning” and “fake”) are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else’s likeness.]

From Forbes: Deepfakes are Going to Wreak Havoc on Society–We are Not Prepared [https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2020/05/25/deepfakes-are-going-to-wreak-havoc-on-society-we-are-not-prepared/#2f36abef7494]

One of the ways FILM PHOTOGRAPHY has an advantage is that while photo editing and manipulation has always been possible, film imparts a sense of authenticity about the subject. Film gives some reassurance that there is TRUTH in the image, especially if a negative can be shown to exist.

Which is why we might be seeing more FILM SHOOTS going forward for editorial photography assignments. The news media only has TRUST to go on to maintain an audience. Once that’s gone, that’s not easily regained.

We trust this image from the FSA PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION, that it depicts the scene as it actually was of a U.S. President visiting the Dust Bowl region of America.

And this one. These images can be trusted.

 

I Don’t Need Anything, But This Leica and This Notebook

Being both a photographer (documentary/street) and a writer (stand-up comedy/screenplays), I came to the realization that there is a correlation between the two. Because both require something of me. See, I carry a Leica and notebook everywhere I go.

When my parents took photographs when I was growing up, they took them out at Christmas, at the Jersey Shore, at backyard birthday parties. Maybe they pulled out a Kodak Hawkeye or Retina IIIc, then they put the camera away until the next big occasion.

The photofinishers famously said, “Many rolls were snow, sand, snow!”

That’s one way to use a camera–bring it out when you expect to see something “photo-worthy”, though in this phone-crazed world, that’s everything and all the time. I don’t mean shooting your lunch. So, disregarding how most people use phone cameras–more as diaries like where they parked their car, or a pic of a receipt–typically folks use cameras for special occasions.

But I have one in my pocket (IIIf fits nicely with its collapsible lens in my front jeans pocket), or over my shoulder (typically an M2, M6 or M9) all the time. Friends and family wouldn’t recognize me without one.

The difference is I’m not looking for a special occasion. I’m not taking it out to photograph.

My friends might bring a DSLR to a backyard party, but would not usually bother to take photos at Tuesday night dinner. I have my camera at Tuesday’s dinner and every dinner every evening.

Same with my notebook. For when an idea strikes, I can write it down before I forget it. That’s so important. But I think something else is happening when I carry these items. Almost like luring the muse, asking for inspiration to find me.

The Leica and the notebook are attractors. Like magnets to metal. They bring the photographs and writing ideas to me.

If I were to leave without a notebook, my subconscious doesn’t have to be on the lookout for ideas. It knows I have no way to record them. But if the notebook is in my pocket, the ideas come. I don’t know how they do, but they do.

If I were to go out without a camera, I don’t have to look for possible photographs. Even peripherally. At the most, all I’ll see are the ones I would have missed, so better to discount everything before really taking a good look, not to get disappointed in not being ready to take the shot.

So, for me, the object, the camera and the notebook are much more than devices for photography and writing. They’re an agreement for my creative, my subconscious, to be watching and listening, because I’m ready and open to their input, their awareness.

I don’t go out to take photographs. Or to write.

But I do. Both.

A zucchini race at the Boulder Creek Fest, Leica M3, Ilford HP5.

The obvious winners of the zucchini race at the Boulder Creek Fest, Leica M3, Ilford HP5.

Likes and Votes for the Win is a Lose!

Ok, I know there are gatekeepers to the creative world, the gallery curator, the magazine editor, etc. but I have a real problem with any award being given out for who can generate the most votes for their work. Any kind of work.

Years ago, I was at a film festival and the “audience award” went to whichever film had the most likes on Facebook. That’s not an award, that’s a popularity contest and a film festival farming for likes.

It might feel like a win, but it’s not. It’s a sign of who spends the most time online, who sends out the most notices, and who has the biggest following of people with time to follow their directions and vote for them.

It’s the biggest “lose” in my book. If you win one of these, I can’t give you kudos for your creativity. Marketing, perhaps, but do you want to be a marketer or a photographer?

Just make great art, and put it in the public forum.

Reach for the stars! Go high!

Take it to art buyers and learn from portfolio reviews. Be the one in control of your own work, not the one with the ability to generate likes.

“So, Kenneth, how do I do that?”

Good question. Follow Lenscratch. Read about their photographers. Schedule one of their portfolio reviews and when you’re ready, submit your project according to their guidelines. Be a professional, an artist with ambition, but in control of your career, not a “like” master.

And say no to contests that work with Likes. That’s not art. That’s not anything to be proud of, it’s social marketing and the platforms are the real winners.

Legendary Photographer and Almost His Rolleiflex Portait

I saw an excellent documentary at the Boulder Int’l Film Festival Saturday afternoon on Life Magazine Photographer Henri Dauman, who photographed so many legends, celebrities and statesmen, including Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Dennis Hopper, JFK and Jackie Kennedy, Elvis, and countless others. It’s titled “Henri Dauman: Looking Up”, and if you can, see it, it’s good.

Of course I brought a Rolleiflex with me to the screening at the Boulder Theater since Henri started with that camera in the 1950s, and since he was scheduled to be there, I figured I’d use it to make a portrait of him. But as it turned out, at the last minute he had a conflict and couldn’t be there.

Well, after the screening, the producer, Nicole, who’s also his granddaughter, was there and she said she had noticed my Rolleiflex. I said I brought it to photograph Henri. She said, “Take my portrait and send it to him. He’ll love that.” I said ok.

So, I photographed her with the Rolleiflex outside the theater, developed the film and hand-printed the portrait of her in my darkroom, and now I’m sending her portrait to Henri, this master photographer.

I am very honored to be able to offer it to him and have it in his home gallery. And I like the connection the camera had to Henri and how it brought her to me to make the portrait.

As much as I love her portrait, it’s for her and him that I made it, so I’m sending it to them in print form and they can choose whether to share it.

Here’s a photo of Henri with Brigitte Bardot from 1962.

Some Things You Just Do

Some things you do for money

To make a living, to eat, to keep the lights on.

Some things you do for the art of it.

Not everything has to be monetized.

That’s why I make portraits of folks 70+ on Mondays

In my Longmont photo studio at no cost.

Because I can.

Because it’s important.

Because I believe if I share what I’m doing

And why I’m doing it,

Perhaps you also will see the importance.

Maybe you’ll hit the like button.

Even better, maybe you’ll actually contact me.

You might even get some other photographer

To make the portrait.

That’s fine.

Just so long as it gets made.

Either way, wonderful faces live on,

In beautiful portraits.

Printed photos that matter.

Because they matter.

And great-grandchildren will be glad I made them.

The Wise Photo Project is what I call it.

Because preserving family history,

That is the wise thing to do.

 

The photographs that we look back at from the 1960s, 1970s and other past decades, most people didn’t think much of those photos when they were being made. When present day is right in front of us, it’s difficult to see the reason to document it. It’s almost like we’re BLIND to it. “Nothing to see here,” because we see it all day long. But then it’s gone, and we can’t go back and photograph it or the people that matter, because that time and those people are gone, too.

 

So, what are we doing? Photography used to be a way to preserve family history in photographs and albums. It served a long-term purpose.

 

Now it’s a way to share a glimpse for a split-second. It’s up to us to make those split-seconds last longer than that if we expect to be able to go back to the early 2000s, the 2010s and 2020s and relive our history. To travel back to those memories.

 

Print a photo or two. Because no one is going to fire up the hard drive in fifty years to see our work.

 

Make a photograph for your great-great-granddaughter or great grandson.

 

I repeat this often because people tell me that they’re printing after being reminded. So, this is another reminder.

 

Photograph the people and things that you love and print those photographs. Cost is low, value is tremendous.

Photography, Time Travel and Forgotten Memories Remembered & Relived

Photography used to be time travel. We took photographs, and then forgot them. That magic roll of film held the memory safe, tucked away in the dark to be revealed and relived at another time.

A trip to the Fotomat was highly anticipated–the roll finished and developed, it offered wonderful surprises, time travel, remembering and reliving moments, the essence of photography.

In this instant digital world, that magic is missing, the distance between creating the photograph and reliving it is non-existent, perhaps why photography feels less fulfilling than it once did. I make a photo, I show it to you, you’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, it’s all done. Nothing left to do but the chore to get it to you, which I may never do, because who cares, you already saw it.

I made a portrait of a woman yesterday for The Wise Photo Project and I made it on a Hasselblad film camera on black and white film. Someone asked me why shoot film, and I said, “If I don’t shoot film, I have nothing to print in my darkroom. I need a negative to create a print by hand, a one-of-a-kind hand-printed silver portrait.”

If her family wants to share it, they’ll have to visit her to see the print–that’s the product of these portrait shoots, a photograph. Framed. For real. Not a swipe left or right. Not an email or a scan. A real photograph to place in her house and have for future generations to keep and always know her face.

She’s looking forward to her portrait. She’ll be very happy when she sees the wonderful image of herself. I’m proud of it and that I had the opportunity to make it.

But she’ll have to wait for it.

Therein lies the magic.

And if you want to see it, well, you won’t find it here. You’ll have to stop over and visit her to see her portrait.

Maybe have a coffee and some conversation, too. Another bonus to creating an actual photograph–time spent together.

What do you want for 2020?

Keith Richards wanted to be in the best blues band in London. He ended up being in the best band in the world!

I want to be the best photographer in Denver with gallery and museum exhibitions of my work, to be an influential teacher and

inspiring speaker on photography, and similarly known around the world!

Dream big, then go to work!

Set your intention. Make goals. Work to deadlines. And you can do anything!

The Selfie Generation

I was looking at a young friend’s Facebook page trying to find a photo I had made at  their party, and while I was scrolling through, not finding it, I found dozens of photos like these.  Posed and selfie group shots.

I looked further and found more posed and selfie group shots.  Decently composed, but all the same.

Is that all we are making these days? Has the phone become ubiquitous with selfies and nothing else? I see no photos of their cars, them doing anything, playing a game, talking at a coffee shop, working on a puzzle, nothing.

Just posed selfie group shots or single shots.

I was genuinely surprised, not that there’s anything wrong with selfies, but I was shocked not to find anything else, and wondered if people are shooting them and i just missed it, or is this all there is?

I used to joke with my oldest brother when he had kids, “Do they like to do anything besides standing and smiling in front of things?” Now, I’m thinking that that may be all people are shooting, and the candid photographs have gone by the wayside.

A friend of mine even said she misses all the closed eye photos and other “outs” that are deleted before they’re ever seen.

I sure hope that’s not the case, and there are some unposed photos still being made. To me, the candids are the true storytelling photographs. The ones I most enjoy looking through.

The Camera is the Greatest Way for Meeting People

I’ve met more people in my life as a result of my camera than any other way.  Of course, I talk to strangers all the time.  In fact, I don’t think of them as strangers, but just people sharing life with me, and we are all a part of this something, whatever is is, together,  We are in effect friends that haven’t yet met.

Dr Laurie Santos, a Yale professor whose podcast is The Happiness Lab has a podcast episode, Mistakenly Seeking Solitude about just that.  I so relate to it–we need human connection and social interaction.  It’s vital to life.

And the camera is the greatest way to create that introduction.  It’s countless the number of times that a Rolleiflex or 4×5 camera has led me to conversations with people.  Or their portrait.  People are really not as scary as we’ve made them out to be.  Strangers are just strange because we haven’t said hello yet.  Once we do, they’re no longer strangers.

Dave, from Old Central City, Huntinton WV, isn’t a stranger but a new friend!

It’s a simple thing, to carry a camera (preferably a gorgeous Leica or something that shoots film and looks like a piece of art) and then to approach people to photograph their portrait. I suspect a photographer who did nothing but go out into public and ask to photograph people ‘because they look amazing’, that photographer would make a lot of days.  People would leave the encounter with a smile on their face, and a bit of joy in their heart, for being selected and the honor of being photographed.

There are no strangers.  Let’s go out and meet our neighbors, the ones we know and the ones we will soon know.  And say hello to those who cross our path.  Their interaction with us makes our day better too, adds a bit of joy to our day.