Britannia Beach museum from a few years ago. I love this place, and all derelict industrial locations where time is marking decay.

Light at the end of the dock

Even a ferry terminal can look interesting at night

Nighttime in the fall.

Pentax 645D is a game changer

Today Pentax announced the release of the Pentax 645D after teasing us for over four years with the possibility. I think by now everyone had all but given up on the idea of it actually ever happening.

One may be tempted to say "so what", Pentax is a small player in the market and there are other digital medium format players out there already and they are a small high end niche market for pro studio photographers, wiht more money than business sense.

But this would ignore some key points about this release.

The price point and quality is squarely aimed at the current full frame digital SLR user and the current medium format film user who cannot put togehter $20 000 to $30 000 for any of the current medium format digital back systems.

Pentax is a significant and long player in the medium format film market, with many pro photographers still actively using their 645 film cameras and lenses. They have a significant range of excellent glass in the medium format range and it can be picked up on the second hand market for relatively cheap. This release plays to their strength and has a ready market in a group of intensely loyal users who have as of yet not switched to full frame digital. These pro's want the quality of medium format but view the cost point of digital backs and the limitations of tethered shooting as hurdles to the switch to digital. Both of these are solved in the 645D and brings it in a familiar package for 645 film users.

Their product brings the superior quality of the digital back medium format world in a portable package that can be used without being tethered to a computer in a studio. It is a compact package and falls in the in the key sub $10000 price range (within a year probably sub $8000). Outdoor photographers who wish for the quality of a digital back can now have one that is usable for landscape, outdoor portrait, photo journalism etc at a fraction of the price.

Pentax is bringing this to market at a price point within striking distance of the current crop of pro grade digital 35mmm format SLR's produced by Nikon and Canon. They have leapfrogged the intensely competitive fullframe Pro market with a far superior product that until now was the preserve of the few and that was previously too limited in its application to be viable. And the main competition in the fullframe market has nothing to compete with them. Canon and Nokin would be wise to sit up and take a good look at this one.

Just look at the competition and its pricing for bodies only:

Canon 1Ds M3 21mp: $6 114

Nikon D3x 24.5mp : $7 469

Pentax 645D 40mp : $9 900 (estimated release price)

Hasselblad H3D 39mp: $21 995

Mamiya DM40 40mp: $21 990

Leica S2-P 37.5mp : $27 995

Once the lenses are added the price difference between the Canon/Nikon and Pentax shrink significantly.

The real benefit to us all may be how this will change the market and migrate high end technology down faster.

You taste like Valentines

You taste like Valentines, originally uploaded by Heather McCutcheon.

I found this beautifuland delicate photo of valentine's day on flickr today. It captures the vulnerability fragile sense of new love perfectly

Well done Heather, it is an excellent photo

Wounded

I have been reading about and looking at Andy Goldworthy's work in recent weeks. I have been inspired by his sense of connectedness with place in his work, and also the sense of layering, time and cycles of growth and decay that comes out in his installations. Last week all of this came to a sudden stop when a very close colleague and dear friend suddenly died last Sunday. The news of Richard's death was like a massive punch in the stomach. Shock and numbness dominated the whole week. As the week went by I felt an increasing desire to get out to Cape Roger Curtis where I am currently working on a book project. I wanted to be in nature, with nature and away from everyone with my camera and mourn my friend in some way. I had a vague idea of doing an installation at a particular tree the previous week when I walked the forest as he was dying on the other side of the world. That sense of disconnect you experience you find out someone died, and you think back on what you were doing while it happened and how you had no inkling of it was palpable for me on the Monday when I got the news. Maybe that was partly why I felt the need to go back to the forest. It just seemed like the right place to go. I took some japanese maple leaves from my garden with me when I left before sunrise on Saturday morning. I wasn't sure what it was going to be yet. I walked back to the tree I had in mind. It is an alder that stands at the edge of the forest next to the ocean. On the ocean side the bark has been damaged and it has left a large wound on the side of the tree that has grown with the tree. When I saw the wounded tree that still grows it reminded me of Richard's life and how he grew a business in spite of the wounds that he sustained when his dad died unexpectedly and he had to take over the family business. It spoke to me of how life is lived, how we all suffer wounds and how they become part of us and the scars become what define us. The japanese maple leaves reminded me of blood and life. It all came together in the work shown. Initially I thought I would attach the leaves with water, but quickly discovered that the water did not have enough surface tension. I ended up using spit. It gave a new layer of meaning because it left like licking a wound to clean it. The leaves were to stiff to bend so I discovered that I needed to tear the veins out. I needed to destroy the leaves to reveal the work. the piece developed its own rhythm as I made it and developed almost in spite of me, as if it was meant to be this way. After much thought about the work I decided to simply call it: Wounded I will never forget you Richard, the memory of you and the wound of your loss is now part me.

To be creative

I have been having various conversations with a young man who is interested in getting into photography. He owns an old film SLR. He is just starting out, and very keen to get his hands on a brand new shiny DSLR so he can get into the digital scene. But spending over $1000 on a decent mid level DSLR is not within his financial reach and so he is stuck.

I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about what the best way forward is for this young new photographer, and he has been willing to be open to my ideas. I think there were two problems with his approach. One is the assumption that you need a digital camera to get into photography and secondly that you need a high end camera to do photography.

There is an assumption among young photographers that digital photography is the only form of valid photography. In fact film photography does not even come into the realm of the possible for most new photographers. This is unfortunate. Firstly they will never experience the incredible magic of seeing a print appear on paper in the developer tray. That was the thing that hooked me forever on making pictures. Secondly they will likely never learn how exposure works unless they make a serious effort to learn their digital camera’s manual mode. This is essential, because learning to see and understand light is critical if you want to be a photographer. Doing black and white film is one of the single best ways to learn to see the light. In my view it is the most important fundamental skill that you need to know if you want to be a serious photographer. It is the photographic equivalent of having to learn classic music before you can play jazz.

I have been encouraging him to use that film SLR and to buy some black and film stock. Spending about $100 will get you everything you need to develop film in your bathroom. Once he has developed the negatives they can be scanned and converted to a digital work flow, which will allow him to still enter the digital online world with his images. I think this is an excellent route for a new photographer to learn the craft.

The second assumption of needing a high end camera may be true depending on what you use the images for. If you are shooting for commercial purposes then yes, you need the best possible camera you can afford. But the vast majority of young new photographers have to learn their art before they can sell their product. The two require separate skills and the second is impossible without the first.

To learn the art photography, or drawing with light, you only need a box with a hole and a light sensitive surface. Most of us have one in our cellphone, mp3 player, compact digital or an unused old film camera sitting on a forgotten shelf. Chase Jarvis recently did a talk about the consequences of creativity in Denver. It is worth listening to because it elegantly makes the point that we need to feed our creative habit for its own sake, and that the consequences of that process are far larger that we can anticipate when we do it.

The engaging in that process requires a personal commitment of energy from our side. A commitment to be carried along with the flow of ideas and acts which are mostly done for fun and often will fail but all add to our creative development as an artist.

I wanted to make this point as strongly as I can, so I put away my fancy DSLR with its prime lenses, took our five year old (which in digital terms is ancient) compact digital camera and kept it with me for a day, making images and short videos as I went about my daily business of earning a living. The end result is the short 2 minute video below. It was made for fun, to make the point that you can use any camera to be creative and hopefully also gives a glimpse into my own creative process, in terms of how I see and how that leads to the making of a photo.

See the video on youtube: http://bit.ly/Ri89V

First assignment completed

Today I helped a client hang my first photo assignment on the wall. It is a six foot wide (1.8m) by 2 foot high (0.6m) print on stretched canvas in black and white.

The photo is located in the reception area of an Interior Design firm named The CHIL design group in Vancouver. They specialize in Resorts, Hotels and high end residential design. The owner was looking for an image that gave a strong feel for the Pacific North West, and when he saw my book gave me a commission to produce a photo for the reception area.

I am very pleased with the results.

In the Beginning there was HDR

HDR today - From my current project about Cape Roger Curtis

Gustav Le Gray - HDR in the Beginning - The Brick in the moon

I discovered an interesting fact today. HDR was first used in the 1850's by a photographer called Gustav Le Gray who was frustrated by the fact that the sky was always rendered white in his photos.

His problem was that the light sensitive material he used was highly sensitive to blue and kept overexposing the sky when he got the exposure right for the foreground. His solution was simple and it turns out timeless.

He made two exposures, one for the foreground and one for the sky and then combined them in the darkroom on the final print. (see the example of his work in the image above). It was called combination printing at the time.

I do exactly the same with my digital camera today in my landscapes, making on average three exposures. One each for the foreground, middleground and sky. I do this because the dynamic range of a digital sensor is fairly limited and cannot get close to seeing a scene as the human eye does. So if the the sky is correctly exposed the foreground is black and if the foreground is correctly exposed then the sky is blown out. Afterwards I layer and combine the images in photoshop with masks. There are dedicated softwares out there that will combine the images for you into a single image. I do not use them because I enjoy the dodging and burning in photoshop with the creative control it gives me. It reminds me of the darkroom. I hate learning new software anyway.