Almost daily, for the past 20 years, life’s more perfunctory tasks have guided me past a drab little collection of pizza-slice windows, poutine joints, head shops, weed stores, and one ramshackle corner lean-to — its architecture the product of disrepair more than design — painted in grime and demarcated only by a spiritless little sign that reads “Canada’s Oldest Adult Store.”
I never once considered this sign might mean anything other than what I thought it to mean — a conclusion reached not just by the neighborhood in which it canted, but by my assumption of the way in which words are summed in the English language.
Specifically, when faced with a phrase whose meaning needs parsed, I simply work my way from right-to-left — summing words in that order to define the intent. In mathematical terms, the following formula depicts this technique:
(Canada’s + (Oldest + (Adult + Store))) = Meaning of Phrase
Following the brackets as if we were in a middle school math class, we begin with the word on the right, “store,” which defines the purpose of the establishment — to sell something. We then add the word immediately to its left to further define the establishment as an “adult store” — euphemistic lingo for “a store that sells blow-up girlfriends, silly costumes, and befittingly garish silicon hot dogs.”
Continuing in a leftward path through the equation, we next modify the phrase “adult store” with the word “oldest,” which tells us that this is “a store that sells sexually-themed products that’s been in business longer than any other store that also sells sexually-themed products.”
Finally, at the far left sits the word “Canada’s” — which, according to the formula, further narrows the meaning to be “a store that sells sexually-themed products that’s been in business longer than any other store in Canada that also sells sexually-themed products.” And this definition, summed in this way, has been my assumed interpretation of this sign for the entire 21st Century.
But a couple of days ago, for reasons I can attribute only to the lingering effects of a recent flu, those four little words grabbed my attention as I stood waiting for the crosswalk signal to change. The more I stared at the sign, the more I realized I didn’t have a clue what it actually meant. The mathematical formula I used to derive its meaning was little more than a presumption — and one I could easily invalidate.
Consider the phrase, “Mental Health Care Professional” — many of whom will, I assume, be reading this post for some evidentiary research into my future hearing. What happens if I sum those four words using the same right-to-left formula I’d applied to the store?
(Mental + (Health + (Care + Professional)))
Doing so causes me to arrive at the assumption that a “mental health care professional” is “a professional who cares for peoples’ health but who is, themselves, mental.” I’m quite certain this isn’t the intended meaning of the phrase, since very few people want their health needs met by someone with mental issues.
Because the actual definition of “mental health care professional” is known, I used this definition to modify my word-summing formula, so that it produced the expected result:
(((Mental + Health) + Care) + Professional)
Having derived a new formula, which produced an accurate result, I naturally chose to apply it to the “Canada’s oldest adult store” phrase:
(((Canada’s + oldest) + adult) + store)
Crunching the English with this new equation tells us this phrase actually means one of two things. Either 1) it’s “a store that sells Canada’s oldest adult” or 2) it’s “a store that sells products meant for purchase by Canada’s oldest adult.”
I’m not 100% certain, but I’m reasonably sure it’s illegal to sell human beings in Canada, so I’m going to assume the second meaning is true. Besides, since North American culture places absolutely no value on age or experience, it would make no sense for a store to try to sell such a thing — particularly the oldest and therefore culturally least-valuable version in the country.
But even the second meaning is doubtful, since it would imply that this is a store that sells products targeted specifically at a single individual — the oldest person in Canada. That’s a seriously exclusive clientele. And what happens if the oldest person in Canada doesn’t live in Vancouver? Why have a brick & mortar store when your one and only client is more-than-likely going to be ordering online?
With my natural inclination toward knowledge, and a realization that my 12 year-old blog is built upon a desire to communicate effectively, I sought the answer the only way I knew how — I walked into the establishment.
And my original assumption proved rather accurate — I saw no old people for sale, nor any old people perusing the wares.
Which means I have absolutely no idea what the correct formula is for summing words in a phrase. If the meaning of one 4-word phrase requires the words be summed in a certain order, and the meaning of another 4-word phrase requires a different summing order, how can anyone hope to speak English and actually be understood?
It’s moments like this that I’m thankful for my propensity to communicate through the unambiguous medium of photographs. I mean, there’s no way those could ever be misinterpreted…
ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Three floods in the condo and a flu have prevented me from taking any new photos this year. Fortunately, I can still cull from the massive backlog taken during December’s Tokyo trip. All are from the M10 Monochrom using a variety of lenses. “Tindertown” used a v4 Leica 35mm f/2.0 Summicron; “Surrogates” used a Leica 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar-M ASPH; While “Venus de Vending,” “Warholier Than Thou” and “Counterculture” all used a pristine Minolta 28mm f/2.8 M-Rokkor, but to wildly different effect.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
I arrive in Tokyo numb-of-mind and lethargic of body — a common result of an 11 hour flight, 17 time zone changes, and an utter inability to sleep on planes. In lieu of rest, I stroll the aisle, hang around the galley drinking apple juice, and execute numerous farcically unrealistic tai chi exercises — the motivation for which, I assume, comes from breathing stale 767 air for 8,000 km. All the while, I gaze enviously at the rows of sleeping passengers, each blithely unaware of the medieval torture devices into which they are buckled. I make my usual stab or two at aerosleep, which yields nothing but a stiff neck, a painful back, and a nasty cowlick.
It’s not just the physical discomforts that prevent my sleep, but the total absence of inner peace, harmony, and calm. I’ve long harboured a suspicion that airline travel is technically impossible, and I’m not too keen on being 35,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean when the world figures this out. Curiously, I can trace the origins of my flying perturbation to that day when, as an Electrical Engineering major, Boeing offered me a job. I could barely orient a pair of AA batteries properly, and they want to entrust me with designing aircraft?
Like a child who pulls the covers over his head to hide from a monster in the room, I’ve developed my own rather ridiculous fear-coping mechanism. I’m sometimes calmed by the sound of droning machinery — a situation that should work in my favour, given that a 767’s jet engines produce a rather potent sensory-engulfing blanket of drone. But I can never quite decouple my mind from the fact these are airplane engines — propelling a giant chunk of metal that isn’t technically supposed to be airborne at all. So I’ve taken to putting on noise cancelling headphones and playing Éliane Radigue’s Trilogies de la Mort — a 2 hour and 49 minute masterpiece of continuously droning oscillators from an ancient ARP 2500 synthesizer. I find it enticingly therapeutic — even though one play gets me through only 25% of the flight.
My time in Tokyo is always tainted somewhat by a modicum of trepidation — the return trip consistently looms just beneath the surface of my thoughts. In some ways, travelling back to Vancouver is a better experience, and in some ways it’s worse. On the upside are the tailwinds, which shave a couple hours off the return flight, meaning a single play of Trilogies de la Mort gets me 33% of the way home. The biggest downside to the Tokyo-to-Vancouver flight is it results in a 41 hour day. And since sitting in a roaring tube of physical impossibility is, as previously established, not conducive to sleep, I’m forced to stay awake for 33 straight hours.
This year, my 41 hour day was on December 25th. Christmas Day. I’m rather certain this would make me the envy of several million children around the world, but my mind was consumed with fact-checking Bernoulli’s Principal for errors and oversights, rather than with thoughts of holly and mistletoe.
Through the miracle of human madness and its desire to partition time, I arrived back in Vancouver 8 hours before I left Tokyo. I breezed through customs, jumped a train, strolled home along eerily empty city streets, and dumped the contents of my suitcase into the laundry. 30 minutes later, my top-load washing machine chose that particular load to disprove the Property of Matter — the science of which erroneously maintains that liquids take the shape of the object containing them — and instead dumped an ocean of water into my condo, destroying the bulk of its flooring, several kitchen cabinets and a couple of walls.
And thus began a fresh new odyssey, which (six weeks later) continues to spawn new and thoroughly unwanted odysseys — in fact, there have been two additional condo-destroying floods since the one on Christmas day. And while the end is nowhere in sight, I suspect this latest visit from the entire Murphy family might just provide a topic for an upcoming article.
There are those who still believe in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s pronouncement that “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Clearly, Emerson’s era preceded the invention of the airplane and Kenmore appliances.
ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Since my life now involves staying home and entertaining tradesmen for 10-12 hours/day, I haven’t had too many opportunities to go out and take new photos. Which means I get to populate this article with a few more shots from December’s Tokyo trip — some of which were even taken in the daylight! All photos are courtesy of the Leica M10 Monochrom, using an assortment of lenses that I simply don’t have the time nor inclination to list. Obviously, the first photo is a metaphor for this article; the second is a curiosity; the third is simply amusing; the fourth one even I don’t understand; and the fifth represents the sort of unbridled joy I will experience once the latest journey finally ends… assuming it ever does end.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Anyone who chooses to thumb through the previous decade’s worth of ULTRAsomething articles will be faced with an incontrovertible truth — that a photo’s technical quality carries little (if any) weight in my evaluation of its acceptability. For me, a photo’s feel will always supersede its fidelity. So it probably seems paradoxical, if not downright criminal, that I have been tasked with testing each iteration of that über-fidelity wonder known as the Leica Monochrom.
The curious fact is that I am, in actuality, a technical guy — complete with an Electrical Engineering degree and a lifetime spent designing and developing electronic music products. So while I do possess the jaunty jargony jive to parse through a camera’s technical merits, I’m also aware they’re only a fraction of the camera’s overall gestalt. And ‘gestalt’ really is the best term to apply to the M10 Monochrom — a camera that relies as much on limitations as on fidelity to create a greater whole. Gone is the modern convenience of autofocus, elaborate AI-infused picture modes, video capabilities, and the ability to record any color other than grey. In its place is an all-new custom-designed 41-megapixel sensor of impeccable ability, and an ergonomic design aesthetic essentially unchanged (because it hasn’t needed to change) since 1954. That’s how you make a nice, hot, steaming bowl of gestalt soup.
This, the third generation of the Monochrom recipe, has inherited the M10 form factor and all the little niceties that product line delivers. It shaves a few mm of bulk off the once bloated digital body, and now features the quietest shutter I’ve heard on a Leica (and I have several old models of analog M and Leica IIIs). As with the second-generation Monochrom, Leica asked me to perform a detailed technical analysis — this time comparing image differences between the new version, its previous incarnation (the Model 246), and the current generation of color M10.
Unfortunately, due to some hiccups in customs, the camera arrived only two days before my scheduled trip to Tokyo. So the time required to perform the technical comparisons would be particularly tight. As the Monochrom’s battery charged, I hastily outlined what sort of controlled photos I would take in an effort to see how much, if any, additional fidelity Leica could squeeze out of this thing.
By the time the battery charged to 80%, Vancouver was engulfed in the darkness of night. I switched on the M10 Monochrom, snickered sardonically as I rotated the new ISO dial to 12,500, walked out onto my balcony and took a single, hand-held shot of the city using one of the slowest lenses I own — the Super-Elmar-M 21mm f/3.4 ASPH. I walked back into the office, popped the SD card into the Mac, fired up Lightroom, and got blown over like that guy in the classic Maxell Tape ad. There was seemingly no way the fidelity of a late night, high ISO shot could be this good. There was precious little noise, scads of detail, and oodles of malleable dynamic range. When I pushed the shadows so hard they resembled daylight, there was no visible banding. And what shadow noise did get amplified was a random, fine, and organic dusting.
I’d taken only one shot, and I already knew I was going to buy it. I didn’t need to run any comparison tests — I needed only to walk around the condo putting Post-It® Notes on things I’d have to sell in order to afford it. But just to be sure, I took the camera on a little walk around Vancouver that night. I checked the images on the Mac when I returned, and immediately opened a new pack of Post-It® Notes. This camera was going to be mine — whatever it cost. I’ve had 4.5 years of hands-on experience with the old Model 246, and I know exactly what it’s capable of and what its images look like — and there is no way it could have done what I’d just asked of the M10 Monochrom. The next night, in the world’s least-scientific comparison, I took the borrowed M10 (color) on a similar walk — it’s a nice camera, but for B&W photography, it wasn’t even in the same league.
I packed my bags for Japan — taking the new M10 Monochrom and two other digital cameras. I could have packed lighter, because the Monochrom was the only camera I used for the entire two weeks in Tokyo — though the other cameras did end up generously donating their SD cards to the Monochrom cause.
There’s nothing quite like photographing with a camera for two straight weeks to know whether or not it’s the camera for me. Even so, my experiences aren’t going to tell you whether or not it’s the camera for you. I can only say that the new M10 Monochrom has eliminated virtually every reservation I had about the old model 246.
My biggest beef with the older Monochrom was its thickness. It never felt right in the hand. The aftermarket Match Technical Thumbs-Up™ helped (as does the requisite soft-release), but its bulk never settled into my palm. And since a firm grip and a wrist strap are the only way I carry a camera, I was often painfully (literally) aware of the camera’s extra size and heft. On my first night out with the new M10 Monochrom, I kept trying to advance the film after each exposure. And for the first week in Tokyo, I would do the same — take a shot, then reach for the non-existent advance lever. Clearly, Leica has finally nailed the body, feel, and handling of a digital M. By the second week, I’d re-trained my thumb to not reach for the “film” lever after every shot — though with the analog and digital bodies now having such similar haptics, this means I’ll probably forget to advance the film when I shoot my analog M bodies.
And speaking of mechanical improvements, this new shutter is quiet. Wicked quiet. Almost leaf-shutter quiet. If discretion is your thing (and electronic shutters aren’t), you will not be disappointed. The whispered snick of its release sound is quieter than any of my M film bodies — by far.
The camera also appears more drizzle-ready than previous digital M cameras. There is no longer an open port for the EVF, nor are there holes for a microphone (since video capabilities have wisely fallen from the spec sheet). And while there has been apocryphal evidence of people gleefully shooting the previous Model 246 in the rain, I was never willing to test fate. If Leica wasn’t assigning an actual IP rating to its weather-sealing, I wasn’t risking it.
But with an assurance from Leica that the new M10 Monochrom will be fine “as long as it’s not raining cats & dogs” (their words), I braved shooting the Monochrom during a few “kittens & puppies” showers. Over time, I’m sure new apocryphal stories will appear on the internet from people claiming to have shot the M10 Monochrom in the driving rain, but here’s the thing: I live in Vancouver — the rainiest city in North America. Our “dogs” are newfies. For all I know, dachshunds might qualify as “dogs” in Wetzler, Germany. Then again, when it’s raining newfies & cougars here in Vancouver, I’m not all that inclined to go out shooting anyway — so it’s a bit of a moot point. Suffice to say, if I’m OK getting a little wet, the new Monochrom probably is too.
I should mention the ISO dial. It rocks. Of course all you M10 owners have known this for the past few years — but it’s new and exciting stuff for us Monochrom shooters. Oh, and the embedded JPG image is actually a useful size now. Thanks, Leica!
If these were the only changes, I’d undoubtedly be drooling over the new M10 Monochrom… and honestly, this is all I expected from Leica — that we would get the new M10 body with, basically, the same tweaked 24-megapixel sensor as before — much like what the M10 got when it was updated from the model 240.
But no. Leica chose to use an entirely new, custom-designed 41-megapixel B&W sensor, and let me tell you… there is NO going back to the M246 for me.
The sensor is simply remarkable. I was initially a bit skeptical of its higher resolution, since the model 246’s old 24-megapixel sensor already has a theoretical limit of approximately 80 lp/mm — far in excess of the 40 lp/mm resolution specs on their MTF lens charts. Leica’s more optically superior lenses (such as my oft-used 21 mm f/3.4) show around 80-90% transmission at 40 lp/mm on center, and about 50-60% in the corners. So it would seem obvious (and it’s visually apparent) that the lenses still have something more to give to an 80 lp/mm sensor. But the 41-megapixel M10 Monochrom’s sensor has a theoretical resolving limit of over 100 lp/mm. Would there still be anything left to extract at that resolution? I’m not one for conducting studio tests, so my experiments were rather rudimentary — I simply locked the cameras to a tripod and used various lenses to photograph distant buildings from my downtown balcony. Basically, when comparing images from the M10 Monochrom and the old M246, I wasn’t able to distinguish any extra detail. But with higher spec’d lenses, the details that did exist most certainly exhibited greater edge sharpness. In practical terms, this means the new M10 Monochrom will allow for ridiculously aggressive cropping, massive prints, or both — provided your lenses are up to the task of feeding this sensor all the data it can handle. It’ll be interesting to see what Leica’s lens designers do now that 40+ megapixels is gradually becoming the new norm.
I was also somewhat concerned all this extra resolution would mean blurrier photos. Granted, since I rarely bother to stop walking when I shoot, all my photos tend to be a bit blurry already — so my trepidation was admittedly rather benign. But what if I did want a sharply focussed photo? Would I be able to handhold the camera and still extract all that extra edge sharpness afforded by the new sensor? Basically, as we know, the higher the resolution, the more susceptible an image is to slight amounts of motion blur. The old “set the shutter speed to 1/f” rule was long obliterated. With the previous generation, I was more inclined to an absolute lower limit of 1/2f. With the M10 Monochrom, 1/4f is the more practical choice for handheld shots with maximum sharpness. Fortunately, this new sensor actually exhibits much better shadow detail, lower noise, and improved high ISO performance, so the cautiously faster shutter speeds are easily compensated.
What’s even more important, is that Leica has somehow managed to increase the camera’s low light fidelity while increasing its pixel density. So, while the M246 and M10 Monochroms both have the same recommended maximum speed of ISO 12500, the new model actually delivers impressive and downright stunning results at this setting. Whereas, frankly, I considered anything north of 6400 to be a “push mode” in the old M246. And speaking of push modes, both cameras allow for an ISO 25,000 push, with the new M10 Monochrom also allowing 50,000 and 100,000 options. I sometimes shot the new M10 Monochrom at ISO 25,000, and was perfectly satisfied. ISO 50,000 is usable if you don’t manhandle the image too truculently in post-processing, but at 100,000 there is simply too much banding for it to be your first choice should you wish to photograph infinite voids in deep space.
It’s still sometimes possible to make patterns appear in the noise floor of an M10 Monochrom file when you rotate or geometrically distort an image. Anyone who’s seen this with either of the earlier Monochroms will continue to see it with the new M10 version. The extent to which these patterns are visible has always been dependent on a RAW converter’s interpolation algorithms. For example, when I use Lightroom to render a file, I see more pattern noise than when I use Exposure 5. The good news is, the M10 Monochrom goes an extra stop or two beyond the M246 before it starts to visibly band, and any noise patterns that do result from geometric distortion are finer and easier to correct. If I’m going to aggressively shove pixels around on a high ISO file, I’ve found that a single application of Photoshop’s Despeckle tool (applied before the editing process) is all that’s required to virtual eliminate any patterns from forming. As mentioned, other RAW converters may minimize the artifact, as does shooting in JPG. It’s a rather minor problem with many workarounds, and anyone shooting with an earlier version of the Monochrom who hasn’t noticed it previously, probably won’t notice it now.
In hopes of making this article appear more fair and balanced, I actually strained a brain muscle trying to think up something ‘negative’ to write. I suppose one thing I find a bit irksome is that the camera’s GPS system requires that the Visoflex electronic finder be attached to the body. This is fine if you’re a Visoflex user. But mine sat on the table in my Tokyo Airbnb the entire time I was out shooting — which means I need to rely on my memory to identify the location of each photograph. And let’s just say I’m not as young as I once was.
At this point, there’s no reason for me to “sell” readers on the advantages of rangefinder cameras for the sort of candid, reactionary photography I prefer. Nor, after two previous iterations of Monochrom, is there any more reason to discuss why shooting a black & white camera is so liberating, and why its images are so much higher fidelity. If you’re not already in agreement, this article won’t convince you. But if you are, then you likely have only one question: “Is the M10 Monochrom the camera of my dreams?”
And the answer to that question depends on how detailed or colourful you dream. If you already have a second generation M246 Monochrom, the decision to update depends on how you answer a few additional questions:
1) Are you reasonably happy with the handling and ergonomics of the M246? If yes, then the M10 Monochrom’s additional benefits (thinner body, dedicated ISO dial, quieter shutter, fewer moisture entry points) might not be important enough to warrant the extra expense. If no, these physical updates alone might just sway you.
2) Do you crop aggressively and print big? If no, you’ll likely see little actual benefit to having a sensor with 75% more pixels than the M246. The old model’s 24-megapixel sensor is excellent, and it already resolves the vast majority of detail provided by Leica’s exceptional lenses. So while the “wow factor” you’ll experience when you view a file at 1:1 resolution is exhilarating, the amount of extra hard drive space and computer processing time you’ll need to shove all those extra pixels around might not be. If you do crop aggressively (guilty) and/or print big, then the M10 Monochrom’s extra pixels (when fronted with a modern, high-calibre lens) will create a noticeably higher fidelity output than a resized version of a similarly cropped M246 file.
3) Do you frequently shoot at night, or in dark spaces, or in areas of very high contrast? If no, the sensor’s ability to extract another stop or two of Zone 1 detail (while simultaneously reducing the amount of visible banding in those zones) probably won’t justify the extra expense for those few times it does matter. You can always add a bit of random noise to the shadows in Photoshop, which will pretty much eliminate any banding or geometric patterns created by rotating or skewing an image. Sure, the old model 246 won’t have the same level of Zone 1 detail as the M10 Monochrom — but technically, there isn’t supposed to be any detail in that zone anyway. However, if you do shoot frequently in the aforementioned conditions, you’ll appreciate making far fewer trips to Photoshop to dither away any banding issues, and you will marvel at being able to push those Zone 1 details comfortably into Zone 2, if not Zone 3.
As far as deciding between the color version of the M10 and the M10 Monochrom, I can only suggest one thing — if you’re even waffling about this, then perhaps you’re not quite the certifiably uncompromising B+W fetishist for whom Leica builds this. Obviously, with the M10 Monochrom you lose the ability to ever shoot in color — and if that matters to you, then none of the M10 Monochrom’s other advantages (i.e. cleaner shadows, better ISO performance, higher resolution) will matter to you nearly as much as seeing blue skies and green trees.
For me and my dreams, the new M10 Monochrom eradicates nearly every grumble I had with the previous model. So if there’s any way at all I can gather enough crap to sell on Craigslist, I’ll be buying one.
The camera’s image quality is, as you would expect, outstanding. I’ve included only photos taken at night and at high ISO because they’re the sort I believe benefitted the most from the M10 Monochrom’s new sensor.
If you’re looking at these photos and wondering why they don’t exactly showcase all that “image quality” I’m touting, I’ll refer you to the article’s opening paragraph, where I wrote “a photo’s feel will always supersede its fidelity.” When deciding on a camera, the primary dictates are how well the camera handles; how quickly I can get the shot; and how likely it is I can salvage the shot should I not have enough time to achieve proper focus or exposure. It’s the paradox mentioned in the article’s title: the fact I require such a high fidelity machine to succeed as a low-fidelity photographer.
Also, these photos reflect the fact I shoot many types of lenses to convey different moods. Sometimes those moods require a sharp, contrasty lens, and sometimes they require the opposite. So this series features a host of different lenses, including Leica’s 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar-M ASPH, 28mm f/2 Summicron-M ASPH, and an old 1980’s Canadian 35mm f/2 Summicron. Also represented are a Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 Nokton ASPH, and a Minolta-M Rokkor 28mm f/2.8. How a camera deals with vintage and third-party optics is every bit as important to me as how it deals with the latest tech from Wetzler.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
I’ve always been comfortably confident that not one single hoarding gene hides within my DNA. I am fastidious, tidy, and minimalist — perhaps even to a fault (should you choose to subpoena the opinions of an ex or two).
I have a strict one-in / one-out rule — if something new comes into the condo, something old goes out. It’s why I’ve owned hundreds of synthesizers in my lifetime, but rarely have more than a half-dozen in my studio. It couples nicely with my “if I haven’t used it in a year, then I don’t need it” policy — which does, admittedly, sometimes result in the premature disposal of some actually useful items. But such is the price one pays for being a hoardless horseman.
To date, the only physical evidence of a possible hoarding compulsion is my camera cabinet — which I acknowledge has far more old film cameras than any one person needs. However, my willingness to sell rarely-used gear coupled with the discipline to occasionally purge the shelves of inoperable junk seems to refute that possibility.
But just this month, after decades of minimalist smugness, I’ve uncovered evidence to suggest that I might indeed suffer from a hoarding disorder — hiding (as disorders often do) in plain site.
Yes, my name is Egor, and I hoard snapshots of Tokyo.
Later this month, I’ll be travelling back to Japan — where a mere 57 weeks after my last trip, I will spend 14 days snacking my way through dozens of different neighbourhoods while snapping photos with near reckless abandon.
To a ‘normal’ person, this probably doesn’t seem like aberrant behaviour. But in light of the fact I’m one of the world’s most parsimonious photographers, it stands out as a glaring anomaly. Under non-Tokyo conditions, it can easily take me two months to spool a roll of film through a camera — and that’s if I carry it every day! Even shooting digitally, my totals rarely exceed 50 shots in a month.
But Tokyo? I still have unscanned slides from my 1995 visit, un-catalogued shots from my 2015 visit, and un-viewed photos from 2018. Yet here I am — going again with the singularly specific goal of collecting even more photographs from the streets of Tokyo.
But, as anxious as the local chapter of Hoarder’s Anonymous is to receive its membership dues, I’m not yet prepared to pull out my chequebook. Maybe it’s not a hoarding foible at all, but one of my other many foibles cleverly masquerading as hoarding?
A likely candidate would simply be Newton’s Second Law of Travel, which states that “the very act of being in an environment distinct from one’s own wakes the eye and triggers the shutter finger, thus resulting in a mountain of crappy photos.”
But if this were the case, any trip I take beyond Vancouver’s city limits should result in a marked increase in photographs — yet it doesn’t. It’s only Tokyo. Besides, I’m not sure I’d classify my Tokyo photos as crappy. You might. You probably even do. But I don’t.
So maybe it’s not a case of becoming ‘less selective’ when I press the shutter. Maybe it’s just that Tokyo actually speaks to the same subliminal instincts that motivate all my photographs. I rarely take photos of things that interest my eye — I take photos of things that trigger some sort of instinctual je ne sais quoi that stirs a feeling deep within.
In spite of being a very visual person and photography being an obviously visual medium, when I look at my own photos, I’m not affected by them through the usual process in which an image triggers a memory. Rather, viewing my photos kindles the identical amalgamation of thoughts, instincts and emotions that drove me to take the photo in the first place. My best photos do not act as second-hand reminders, but as first-hand stimulants.
I’ve always said that photographers should photograph themselves. Not literally — like some Instagrammer run amok in a quest for more “likes” — but figuratively. And the fact I see myself woven into the very fabric of Tokyo is probably what causes the outpouring of photos taken there. I am practicing what I preach — I am photographing myself.
Granted, maybe I’m just trying to rationalize my way out of the horrific realization that my DNA isn’t hoarding-free. Or perhaps I’m just attempting to justify another self-indulgent trip of snack ‘n’ snap happy wandering around my favourite city. More likely than not, these (and not hoarding) are the real foibles facing me… well, these and an egotistical need to make all my photos be ‘self portraits.’
Really? You want technical information on this collection of photos? You’re as nutty as I am…
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
For an organic lot, we humans sure like the comfortable confines of boxes. If we can categorize, classify or limit ourselves in some way — any way — we will.
We segregate ourselves by sex, ethnicity, culture and belief. Are we introvert or extrovert? Tall or short? Rich or poor? Liberal or conservative? A morning person or a night owl?
Inhabiting boxes simplifies life. Each has its own rigid limitations, boundaries and rules. The more boxes we can use to define ourselves, the less we have to take responsibility. Direction is determined. Choice is eliminated. And we — as humans — are defined, packaged, labelled, and marketable.
Not content to live only within metaphorical boxes, we confine ourselves to physical boxes too. We partition our planet into countries, and divide our countries into states and provinces; provinces into counties; counties into cities; cities into neighbourhoods; and neighbourhoods into houses — which we further divide into smaller, purpose-oriented boxes called rooms. We give those boxes names that define their acceptable functions. We dine in the dining room, bathe in the bathroom, and place our beds in the bedrooms. Within these rooms, we have designated boxes for storing pre-ordained content: sideboards in the dining room; vanities in the bathroom; dressers in the bedroom — all of which we divide further into sub-compartments. We have a drawer for socks, a shelf for stemware, and a bin for expired tubes of medicinal creams. And when we eventually pass from this earth, what do we do? Entomb ourselves in tiny boxes for eons.
Just how many barriers do we need?
I am obsessed with organization — an obsession that has, historically, relied heavily on a partitioning mindset. I don’t just have a drawer for my socks — I have subdivisions within that drawer to further delineate and classify those socks. The tidier my environment, the freer my mind… or so I thought.
But over the past couple of years, I’ve come to realize that rigidly adhering to my traditional definition of “organization” has had a significantly negative impact on my music.
Contrary to the content that appears within ULTRAsomething’s virtual box, music is my raison d’être. Music is what feeds my soul and it’s what feeds my body — quite literally in fact, since designing, developing, testing and documenting electronic music products has been my primary source of income for over 35 years.
As you might expect with something so integral to my very being, I’ve been particularly diligent at micro-organizing the craft’s myriad tools and techniques into tidy little clusters of function, purpose and intent.
Consider my “home office,” which is really just a small bedroom crammed full of computers, synthesizers, audio processors, mixers, effects, sequencers, microphones, speakers, amplifiers, and other assorted gadgets. Not content to merely place the music gear on stands and shelves within a singularly purposed room, I felt compelled to subdivide that gear into sections. One-third was grouped into an area meant for “composing.” One-third was dedicated to “product development and testing.” And the remaining third was for “live performance” — a particularly curious classification, since I don’t even perform live.
This allowed me to instantly test products in the “development” section, improvise new music and ideas in the “live” section, and work on carefully nuanced recordings in the “composition” section. Neat. Tidy. Orderly… and a total disaster.
If I needed to test a new product’s compatibility or functionality with an instrument that wasn’t currently in the “development” section, I had to disconnect it from where it sat, physically move it to the development section, and route a bunch of cables to connect it there. If I played an interesting improvisation in the “live” section, I had no way to record it or turn it into a composition — that function was built-in to the “composing” section. And if I sat down with the actual intent of composing something, two-thirds of my music making equipment was unavailable to me — resting in either the “live” or “development” portions of the studio.
So, while the arrangement was logical and organized, it wasn’t the right kind of organization. I didn’t need to build more boxes within boxes, like some kind of elaborate matryoshka doll. I needed fewer boxes. I should not have to go to a box and retrieve the ‘thing’ I need — the ‘thing’ should come to me when I need it. Yes, Henry Ford figured this all out way back in 1913… color me a slow learner.
Upon realizing this, I spent the past couple of months reinventing my concept of organization — tossing significant chunks of thought, time and labor into creating an organizational system that transcended partitions, and moved into the realm of neural networks.
My musical environment now functions more like a brain, and less like a filing cabinet. Every piece of gear is fully online and communicating. Any instrument or effect can feed into any other instrument or effect. Anything can be used for development, improvisation or recording. Anything and everything can be immediately grouped or ungrouped as needed. Streamlined fibre optic cables have replaced heavy copper snakes for the purpose of switching, merging and routing hundreds of discreet audio and automation data streams — allowing for instantaneous repurposing and reordering of every chunk of hardware.
Invigorated by this method of ‘open’ organization, I’m considering applying it to the rest of my condo. Why have any walls at all? If I’m hungry, why not push a button and have all the necessary items for preparing and eating food appear before me — regardless of where I currently stand or what other activity I’m engaged in? I’d push another button, and my bed would appear — bringing with it my sink, soap and a toothbrush for the nightly pre-sleep ritual. Everything should come to me — instantly, effortlessly and automatically. Yes, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera figured this all out way back in 1962 when they created “The Jetsons”… color me a doubly slow learner.
My new approach to physical organization completely eschews a traditional reliance on purposeful segregation through division, and instead embraces access, openness and relationships.
Can you imagine the human potential if the world’s metaphorical partitioners were to one day try this same approach?
You can take it as a literal and tedious discussion about how I reorganized my recording studio, or you can take it as a metaphor for society. Your choice.
ABOUT THE PHOTOS:
My original intent was for this post to have no media accompaniment besides the “song.” But upon looking over last week’s roll of Tri-X, I discovered that — without even knowing what the topic of this month’s article would be — I seem to take an awful lot of photos that imply organization. So, rather than hide them on a hard drive for all eternity, I opted to publish a few with this article. All were shot with a Leitz Minolta CL, fronted with an uncoupled (scale focus only) Cosina Voigtlander 25mm f/4 Snapshot-Skopar, loaded with Tri-X, exposed at ISO 400, and developed in Rodinal 1:50.
ABOUT THE MUSIC:
The embedded song is the first one I’ve published in 18 months, and only my second in two years. This dearth coincides quite precisely with the two years my studio equipment spent segregated by purpose. While the song is neither hummable nor danceable, its creation was itself a dance. With the push of a button, every audio channel in my studio was put into record mode. I needed only to waltz around the studio and improvise. I played a low, pulsing drone with the Moog Grandmother, grabbed a snippet of it with the Chase Bliss Mood pedal and began to play the two of them off of each other — the Moog continuing to be Moogish, while the audio snippet shifted through various granular recreations of what I played. This all happened on what had previously been the “development” third of the studio. Dos-i-doing over to what was once the “composition” station, I latched a note on the Oberheim OB-6 and gently twisted its knobs with my left hand, while my right hand played a second keyboard, to which I assigned a choir sound. I next, in real time, step-sequenced a pattern into the Korg Minilogue XD and set it to playing, then performed a Chaîné turn over to the “live” section of the studio, where I added additional undercurrents from the Novation Peak and Arturia Micro Freak, before moonwalking back over to one of the computers to add a final string crescendo. Real-time, improvised recording — from anywhere within the studio. Instantly. My next goal is to write stuff that’s actually good enough to publish for a reason that’s more compelling than “I haven’t published in 18 months.” But that’ll be a whole other psychological issue to address.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Success! After 11 gruelling years, I’ve finally devised a legitimate way to monetize ULTRAsomething. OK, maybe “legitimate” is a bit of stretch, but at least it plays to my strengths, rather than requiring I stoop to the far more distasteful act of self-marketing.
The concept leverages society’s current emotion of choice: negativity. Over the past couple of decades, cultural dismissiveness has progressed from its humble roots as an amusing sideshow of 1990’s tabloid television — through the birth of forum trolling at the dawn of the millennium, and into the very fabric of today’s formidably massive social media industry.
Mainstream companies, mainstream media, and mainstream politicians are all throwing billions of dollars into social media — riding the popularity of any influencer willing to pimp a product or a message in exchange for cash, merchandise, and the ever-enticing opportunity to gain even more followers.
It’s the Golden Rule of marketing, which states that people will “do unto those things that others do unto too.”
In less biblical terms, it means that if someone is thought to use, enjoy or believe in something, then their social media followers will want to use, enjoy or believe the same things. The more followers someone has, the greater their influence on the belief system of others, and the greater their value as corporate or political shills.
I’ve always cast a jealous eye toward influencers. How great would it be to use all the products I want to use, go where I want to go, do what I want to do, and actually get paid for it?
Unfortunately, my proclivities tend to be at odds with those of the general population, which means I have zero value as a traditional influencer — and therein lied the epiphany! In a world awash in negativity, someone so naturally contrary to the ways of the general populace could actually become an anti-influencer!
Rather than employing me to extol the virtues of their own wares, companies could hire me to use their competitor’s products. I would document these experiences on ULTRAsomething, and since this site’s very nature tends to incur the wrath, scorn, ridicule and disdain of the general public, any products I use; places I go; or things I do would be equally scorned.
Is Sweden sick of losing tourists to Iceland? Sweden needs only to send me on an all-expense paid tour of Iceland, and voila — Iceland disappears off a million bucket lists, and Sweden swoops in.
Perhaps Sony wants to increase their share of the camera market even further. What should they do? Send another batch of cameras to the same old bunch of ‘fanboys?’ Nay! I would suggest they ship me a box of Leicas, or a case of Olympus and Panasonic micro four-thirds gear, then tell the fanboys to link to my reviews. One look at what I’ve shot with their competition, and a rash of new camera prospectors will flock to the Sony fold.
Hey, Moog. Want to re-establish “East Coast” synthesis as the coolest and hippest? Send me a Buchla, and the blips, bloops and bongo sounds I make with that “West Coast” style of circuitry will drive the world back east to your fat, ballsy ladder filters, and your rafter rattling roar.
What’s truly great about my plan is that it requires neither pretence nor pretending. I get to be me. No matter what I do, where I go or what I use, I will genuinely find something I like, and I will write about it. Then, because very few people like what I like, the world will instantly hate the very things that are actually good about a product. Which means, if you’ve got something to sell or a message to deliver, I’m your most effective means at neutralizing the competitive advantages of your opposition!
So how about it, people? You folks in Shanghai want to increase your share of the Asian tourism market? Send me to Kyoto, and I’ll kill that town. Does Android want to bury Apple? No problem… just load me up with the latest iPhones and iPad Pros and marvel at your newly buoyant sales figures.
I am poised, ready, and uniquely skilled to be your company’s new secret weapon — I will be your Alienator. Once you turn me loose, you need only sit back and count the money.
The only stumbling block is that I’m simply too good at being an Alienator. Anyone who would benefit from my skill is unlikely to realize it since, by nature and definition, the mere act of suggesting such a concept to a company would result in immediate rejection. Which means I’m not just an Alienator but a living and breathing paradox.
It’s fun to be me — albeit not all that lucrative.
So here’s another thing that makes me ideally suited to be your company’s Alienator: FILM!
“Incongruity 1,” “Marxism, In a Nutshell,” “Stolen Moment” and “Bird’s Eye” were all shot on various antediluvian devices, called “film cameras.” Specifically, “Incongruity 1” and “Bird’s Eye” were shot with a Rollei 35T on expired Kentmere 100 and developed in Rodinal 1:50. “Stolen Moment” and “Marxism, In a Nutshell” were shot with a Minolta TC-1, loaded with Tri-X and developed in Rodinal 1:50.
Even the digital shots are of dubious acceptability, what with “Dystopia” being a B&W rendering of a flare-laden Ricoh GR III image, and “Incongruity 2” having come into being inside a camera that doesn’t even bother to record color information — the Leica Monochrom (Type 246).
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Early in my journey along the dizzying arc of this mortal coil, I developed a disinclination for literalism. Much like Perseus avoided spontaneous petrification by looking at Medusa’s reflection rather than facing her directly, I find life is far less toxic and infinitely more nuanced when viewed through abstraction.
A subject photographed directly is often clinically precise, yet cold as stone. But a subject photographed metaphorically is infused with life — inviting exploration and interpretation. It’s why I avoid aiming my camera at fact, and instead point it toward connotation.
It’s also why I like to hide stories in the space between written words. Why must literature be literal if it’s so much richer when figurative? Literalism, I believe, is best reserved for mathematical figures.
We are awash in the tangible. Architecture, cars, pets, landscapes, friends, fashion, etc. Anyone who wants a photo of tonight’s apricot-coloured sunset needs only to train a camera at the western sky and release the shutter. But what if someone wants a metaphorical sunset photo? Setting aside the relative unlikelihood of such a desire, how would one even go about creating such a thing? What camera would you use? Where would you point it? And when? I’m lightyears away from being clever enough to assign myself such tasks. Which is why I choose, instead, to simply stumble upon my metaphorical photos.
The hiccup with this particular technique is that it sometimes takes years to figure out just what each photograph is a metaphor for. It’s why I tend to glare at someone when they ask, “Did you get any good photos today?” It’s easier than saying, “I don’t know — ask me in a couple of years,” and then having to explain what that means.
This whole ‘shoot first, figure it out later’ scenario worked rather well when I was young. Time was still on my side, and never once did a client ask me for a metaphorical photo of anything — so I could take as long as I needed to figure out what it was I had photographed. I’m now at an age that only 15% of the world’s population would categorize as ‘young,’ and I’m beginning to realize that I likely have fewer years remaining than I have metaphors to identify.
So I’ve decided to leverage my internet ‘fame,’ and cloud-source the identification task. As an experiment, I’ve populated this article with a few scans from my two most recently exposed rolls of film. Perhaps some clever readers can help me identify exactly what I was photographing when I took these photos? I have no doubt that each and every one of them is an honest-to-goodness, bona fide metaphor… but a metaforwhat?
This was originally going to be an article about metaphors in general, rather than photographic metaphors. But I couldn’t work through the paradox of how a parabolic writer could pen an article about metaphor without addressing the subject of allegory allegorically. To not do so would be disingenuous and conflicted. But to do so would create the literary equivalent of a feedback loop, which I’m quite certain would act as a catalyst for the formation of dark matter. And since dark matter emits no light and cannot be seen, there’s really no point in writing and posting such a thing. There’s already enough dark matter on the ULTRAsomething site… metaphorically speaking.
And since someone will inevitably want to know: All photos were taken on expired Kentmere 100 and processed in a 1:50 solution of Rodinal. The two horizontal shots come courtesy of an early 1970’s Rollei 35T, while the two vertical shots arrived behind the shutter of a late 1940’s Leica IIIc fronted with a 35mm f/3.5 Elmar lens.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Strolling along the smooth, grey surface of the gyri are the brazen, unflappable Yups. With their switchblades at the ready and their striking resemblance to a pop-art mob of jittery Keith Haring silhouettes, they roam my frontal cortex with a cocksure strut and a mission to seek and destroy all Yips.
Patrolling the sulci are the aforementioned Yips. Adorned in fedoras and clutching their signature piano wire garrotes, they lurk in the recessed shadows like a band of sinister killers from a long forgotten film noir — deftly dispensing the flashier Yups with ninja-like precision.
The Yips believe that I am what I am — that the more I’m me, then the more I am. The Yups believe I’m not all I could be — that the more I can feign, then the more I attain.
It’s a war without beginning and a war without end. Egor vs. Egor. Winner take all.
Like most of my psychological brouhahas, this month’s rumble raged over the right to control my creative output. Whenever my expressive motivations wane (as they have these past few months), the mental bickering escalates in both pitch and intensity — boiling over into an all out Yip on Yup dustup.
Faced again with another looming publication deadline — and set against the backdrop of my ever dwindling audience, my limited amount of time, and my waning creative motivations — the Yups proposed that the best way forward was to adopt the notion of “simplicity.”
There, on the surface of the gyri, it sounded logical. Multi-layered articles, metaphorically complex photos, and intricately textured music do not really lend themselves to quick and easy creation. Reduce the complexity, and the act of creation becomes easier. So with the Yups’ proposal seemingly sound and the Yips obscured in shadow, I opted to implement the plan — deciding this month’s creations would all be paradigms of succinctness.
I began, as always, with photography — turning my eye away from subjects rich in obscure, interpretive metaphor and toward those with the simplest and purest of shapes. Concurrently, I composed a new piece of music that dispensed entirely with sonic entwining and harmonic complexity, and instead relied solely on the old-fashioned elements of rhythm and melody. The article I would pen to accompany both was to be an exercise in pithiness — short, direct, and void of any allegorical allusions that required reading between the lines.
So what happened?
Well, as you’ve likely noticed, there is no music accompanying this article. Immediately after I completed a preliminary mix, the song was quickly assassinated by the Yips — all of whom abhor the banality of melody and rhythm, no matter how catchy.
The photos, too, were so mindlessly pointless that a small team of Yips off’d them straight into the oblivion of the Macintosh trash icon. However, in order to prevent publication of a nearly naked essay, I eventually opted to retrieve two of them from the dump, thus providing some contrast to the single Yip-inspired photo that begins the article.
And what of the article itself? What can I say? When you’re describing neurological processes like a jumbled fusion of Westside Story meets mid-20th century, expressionist-tinged nihilist cinema, then you’ve probably failed the simplicity mandate.
The Yups may hate it, but the Yips still own the turf. My creativity and motivation sometimes wane, but the Yips believe the path that got me to where I am now is the path that will take me to where I’m going. Even if the destination isn’t ultimately what I imagined it to be.
So if I’m going to create crap — and I will from time to time — it’s better to create it within the confines of truth than within some artificial construct beyond one’s self. Vive les Yips!
“Canada Place” and “Porteau Cove” are, indeed, the two bits of banality motivated by the Yups’ ridiculous desire to generate pablum in the absence of inspiration. “Neurology” was the Yips’ response — offering what may or may not be an actual photo of a wandering synapse.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Every couple of years, in what I presume must be an act of preventative penance, I crack open the archives of my photographic past and dive into its pool of rejects.
Perhaps “pool of rejects” is a bit of an understatement, considering my collection of failures is as vast as the Pacific Ocean and as deep as the Mariana Trench. The breadth and depth of rejects is particularly disheartening when considering how few photos I actually take. People on a week-long vacation return home with more photos than exist within my entire 30+ year archive. If this is the yield of a ‘discerning’ photographer, I’d hate to see what would happen if I were ‘cavalier.’
Apparently my penance reserves are running low, because this was one of those “every couple of years” months. After eight straight weeks of life-induced camera neglect, I had no new photos and another looming publication deadline. Since I’m loathe to write an ULTRAsomething essay without media content, and since my life-induced synthesizer neglect has been even more egregious than my camera neglect, I had no choice but to suit up and descend into the watery grave of rejects.
To survive any plunge into the archives and surface with at least a shred of remaining ego requires a very narrow and focussed approach. Diving across too wide an archival expanse produces the psychological equivalent of ‘the bends.’ So for this article, I chose to focus only on photos taken during this same two month period, but exactly one decade ago. Besides possibly salvaging a publishable image or two, I also hoped to answer one of those burning navel-gazing questions of mine: “Am I a better photographer now than I was 10 years ago?”
The answer, it seems, is “no.” Turns out I’ve seen absolutely no measurable growth as a photographer, which is only heartening when contrasted with the realization that I’ve also seen no measurable decline. I like to think this means I’ve established a ‘mature’ style, and not that I’ve stagnated. But then, I am a master of rationalization.
Curiously, my photography isn’t the only thing that hasn’t progressed much in a decade. I could see absolutely no fashion variances between now and 2009. Same hair; same clothes; same bags; same glasses; same everything. In fact, the only visual clue that I was looking at 10 year-old photos was the marked absence of smart phones. Although the iPhone was two years old in the summer of 2009, it (and its ilk) had yet to become the ubiquitous homogenizing device it is today. Which probably explains why my tendency to photograph people has declined in the past decade. Humans absorbed with their phones don’t really motivate my photographic urges.
The one area in which I absolutely expected to see self-improvement was in my curatorial skills. As I’ve said on many occasions, “A monkey could take the same photos I take. My skill is in selecting which ones should be published.” Alas, combing through mid-2009’s archives revealed that I’d pretty much mined everything that was mineable. Which explains why this article is accompanied by such mediocrity.
Ultimately, I managed to survive the archival descent with my ego mostly intact — unnerved only by the realization I could vividly remember taking every single photo. I recalled the circumstances surrounding each image as if I took it a few weeks ago; not a decade ago. I could remember which way I was walking; what camera I was using; how the image presented itself to me; what I chose to eliminate from the scene — everything! Which means I’m now so old that the passage of a decade has become statistically insignificant. But since I’ve already met this year’s quota for mortality-based freak outs, I’m choosing to willfully ignore this one.
Hopefully, I’ll find my way out of camera-neglect next month. Ideally, what I’d really like is to find my way out of synthesizer-neglect. It’s been an awfully long time since I tortured the world with some new music…
For those who like to reminisce about digital cameras from days long passed, I will inform you that “Time Served, “Portrait of an Individualist” and “Scout” were all shot with a Leica M8 and a 28mm f/2 Summicron lens. Meanwhile, “Shoes of Damacles,” “Logjam” and “Flight” were all photographed with the very first micro four-thirds camera — the Panasonic Lumix G1. Since no lens data is embedded in the photos, I’m reasonably certain that all were taken with the Leica 28mm f/2 using a Novaflex M-to-m43 adapter.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Saga, and I’m a Behavioural Scientist. For the past fifteen years, I’ve been Principal Investigator for a joint Swedish/Canadian study on the genesis of internet influence and its impact on modern society.
Specifically, my colleagues from Stockholm and Vancouver have analyzed and catalogued which personality traits and persuasion tactics result in the greatest social influence, and the extent to which a single individual can guide the thoughts, beliefs, mores and behaviour of an entire community. A significant portion of this study involved designing and developing numerous websites, each “hosted” by a carefully crafted yet totally artificial personality.
It feels strange to be introducing myself to you when, in fact, I’ve been the one writing this site for the past decade. I feel as if I know all of you so well, even if you don’t know me. ULTRAsomething, as you’ve probably now surmised, was one of several hundred sites painstakingly designed to isolate and thus experiment with numerous artificial personas and communication techniques.
In particular, it was one of two blogs designed around the topic of photography. Our goal was to see what type of individual could exert the most significant influence on the world’s photographic vocabulary. Site A (ULTRAsomething) was built around a manufactured personality who believed photography was about the image. Site B (name withheld) introduced a personality whose character believed photography was about the camera. In order to prevent each site’s photographs from exerting any actual influence on public opinion, we decided that both should feature the worst photos possible — that way we could measure the influential impact of the method, and not of the photos themselves.
For ULTRAsomething we chose to create blurry, low fidelity, black and white photos of random nothingness. Since no one on the staff could take photos bad enough to satisfy the dictate, we rescued an adorable Chihuahua/Irish Wolfhound mix from the local pound, strapped a camera to its chest and rigged it to fire off a shot every time the animal stopped to scratch. For Site B, we opted to concentrate on cat photos and HDR. Initially, the cat photos were taken by the daughter of an associate. But when she reached the age of six, she began to develop a sense of visual taste, so duties were transferred to my own two year-old niece. The HDR photos were all taken by my ex-husband, and were the result of a well-orchestrated “false-like” campaign, in which I and other researchers continuously liked, praised, and thus encouraged him to over-sharpen, over-saturate, and over-compress his images to the point of utter ridiculousness.
As anyone with an internet connection has surely seen, Site B’s “photography is about the camera” approach was extremely effective at establishing influence, and is now the primary reason why cat photos and HDR remain the two most commonly praised genres of “fine art” photos on the net. ULTRAsomething’s “photography is about the image” message failed to exert any influence whatsoever, and its grainy little blobs of murkiness are universally despised by the feline favouring patricians of the new camera-centric photographic empire.
With the study now complete, Roscoe (our Chihuahua/Irish Wolfhound mix) has semi-retired from photography, and enjoys life as my faithful and fun-loving companion. He keeps me company since I divorced my husband, who had sadly transformed into an insufferably arrogant bore after believing the robot-generated adulation heaped upon his most retina-tearing photos.
In spite of its lack of influence and miniscule readership, I’ll admit to developing a soft-spot for the ULTRAsomething piece of our experiment. Each month, I found myself looking forward to curating Roscoe’s random snaps, and to moderating the witty comments sent in by readers. While every other site in our study attracted an abundance of negativity, bullying and ignorance, ULTRAsomething’s readers always remained respectful, clever, funny and intelligent.
So I’ve decided to continue publishing ULTRAsomething, even though the study is over and the subterfuge revealed. While divulging the truth may convince some of you to unsubscribe, the behavioural scientist in me knows most of you will continue to believe the ULTRAsomething myth — that it’s written by a middle-aged Canadian guy who’s doomed to a life of serial existential crises, and who wanders around taking photos of metaphors so as to avoid facing any of these crises directly.
If my studies have taught me nothing else, it’s that the internet affords each of us complete control of our own public image. Society believes who we say we are, rather than who we really are. And the fact I’m a Swedish woman with a flea-scratching, camera-toting dog will probably not deter you from believing the lie I’ve propagated this past decade. Which is good for me, and for the future of my new hobby.
So you’ll probably see me next month, pretending once again to be that Egor character. I may, however, need to visit the pound and adopt a new camera dog. After eleven years, I still haven’t figured out how to take pictures as bad as old Roscoe’s.
Old dog; new camera. These pictures were, as always, curated from a collection of photos shot by Roscoe on various walks these past few weeks. The only difference is that I fastened a new Ricoh GRIII on Roscoe’s camera harness. It’s lighter and smaller than most of the cameras Roscoe hauls around — a fact he appreciates in his waning years.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
After committing decades to scrimping, saving, frugalizing and general indentured servitude, I have looked deep within and determined it’s time to retire and enjoy my remaining life. The only snag comes courtesy of those darn online life-expectancy calculators — all of which suggest my remaining life will extend a dozen years past the demise of my savings.
Which makes me wonder why, six years ago, I bothered to adopt a healthy, active, nutritionally balanced lifestyle. Retirement would be firmly in my grasp if only I’d embraced donut brunches, whisky lunches, and a casual crystal meth habit. Fortunately, in spite of my ill-considered healthy proclivities, I doubt I’ll actually survive those extra 12 years on $0. So I guess that’s the upside — albeit one with its own significant downside.
Still, retirement is an intriguing prospect — but not because I want to spend my days roasting in the sun on some tropical beach; or playing golf; or taking pottery classes; or chasing kids off my lawn. I don’t even want a lawn! Rather, it’s because I need time to work on things that really matter. I’ve got albums to record; electronic music performances to give; maybe I’ll even get around to finishing that opera I started in 1991. There are photo books yet to shoot, curate and publish; exhibitions to plan. Perhaps a tome of antiwisdom, or even a screenplay awaits. Maybe I’ll even direct it. The world is awash with job opportunities just waiting to pay me with a pocketful of smiles and a fistful of legacy. If only goods and service providers didn’t prefer their invoices be paid with nifty plastic Canadian bank notes.
Between the time spent being someone’s employee; the time spent reclaiming my soul after doing so; the bill paying; the inordinate amount of effort needed to rectify other people’s screw ups; the cooking; the cleaning; the sleeping; and all the general health requirements dictated by the life expectancy calculator, I still manage to set aside 14 minutes of “me” time per day. 14 minutes of “me” time per day works out to 7 hours of “me” time per month — which, not coincidentally, is about how long it takes to squeeze out another mediocre ULTRAsomething article (though I often have to forgo a couple nights of sleep in order to finish).
In fact, the only reason ULTRAsomething is still hanging around is it helps scratch my creative itch. Unfortunately, my creative itch is a bad case of poison ivy, peppered in chigger bites, and wrapped in poison oak — while ULTRAsomething is but a teaspoon of expired calamine lotion.
The ticking of time has become a thundering pulse — a relentless reminder that meaningful creations will require more effort than a smattering of minutes can provide. A megafied ULTRAsomething — complete with content that matters and long-term, large-scale projects — that’s my retirement goal.
I’ve long dreamed of finding an employer for whom my skills and passion have value, thus negating the need to ever retire. Or a patron of the arts who actually connects with my idea of what constitutes art. Alas, if I haven’t found them yet, they probably don’t exist. Which means the scrimping, saving, frugalizing and general indentured servitude must continue ad infinitum. I’m not sure exactly how long “infinitum” lasts, but it sounds like an awfully long time. Too long, actually. Anyone know where I can find a really good french cruller and a reliable supply of quality crystal meth?
If this article seems a bit short, there’s a good reason: I burned a significant quantity of my 14 minutes/day (and several additional nights’ sleep) exploring the technological needs of a potential larger-scale electronic music project. Which probably had a whole lot to do with inspiring this essay.
The accompanying photos may or may not have meaning. I’ll let you decide. They were, however, all taken with digital cameras (one on a Ricoh GR; and two on a Ricoh GRIII) ’cause who has the time to develop and scan film?
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
I have recently completed a 24-hour period in which I had the distinct displeasure of shooting with the biggest hunk-o-junk in the history of hunk-o-junkdom.
The hunk in question is the Soviet-era Russian Agat 18K — a half-frame toy camera that, if given to an actual child, would undoubtedly necessitate in a lifetime of psychotherapy.
Like most fiascos, my time with the Agat 18K began with good intentions. Creatively intoxicated by my glorious experience with the Ricoh Auto-Half, the seeds of a new idea began to germinate in the old encephalon. “Why not,” I thought, “build myself a legacy as a ‘half-frame photographer?’” As niches go, it’s reasonably untapped, and I thoroughly enjoy both the half-frame shooting process and its results. Besides, it would be a step up from my current legacy as an ‘irrelevant photographer.’
My first order of business, prior to purchasing any new film camera, is to assuage my guilt over already owning far too many. Deftly deploying the acrobatically inclined synaptic leaps of a world-class rationalizer, I invented a theory that half-frame cameras should only count as half-a-camera in my inventory total. Dodgy justification in place, I guiltlessly began researching which half-frame camera would next aid my newly-anointed legacy.
This time around, I wanted a camera that offered a bit more control than the point-and-shoot models I’d been favouring, yet remained ludicrously inexpensive. This short but simple set of requirements led me straight to the Agat 18K.
Gleaming with the sumptuous glow of my monitor’s LED backlight, the Agat appeared to check all the right boxes. It sported both manual focus and manual exposure. It was cute, which seems to be a design aesthetic shared by all the best half-frame cameras. The internet was chock-a-block with rave Agat 18K reviews, and it even possessed that one special feature I look for in every new film camera — something I call the “discombobulation factor.” The Agat’s d-factor comes courtesy of its vertical orientation, which (if held as designed) results in landscape-oriented photos rather than the portrait aspect of most half-frame cameras. But the most important factor was its price: $25. Canadian. Plus another $6 to ship it from Belarus.
I could see no possible scenario in which the Agat 18K wouldn’t yield at least $31 worth of fun — even if it completely and totally sucked.
I was wrong.
The camera found its way from Belarus to Vancouver far quicker than expected. I’ve placed expedited Fed Ex deliveries within Canada that took longer to arrive. Combining hindsight with cynicism, I suspect the seller was highly motivated to unload it as quickly as possible — lest I change my mind. I extracted the tiny camera from the center of a 10 meter spool of bubble wrap, and examined it carefully. Cosmetically, it looked about as fine as a 31 year old plastic toy camera can look.
Glancing at Vancouver’s weather forecast and seeing a queue of unseasonably warm and sunny days ahead, I grabbed a roll of expired Kentmere 100 from the back of the freezer, and began to load the camera.
Here’s where the story darkens.
My first attempts to advance the film proved futile — the advance knob would turn, but the film would not wind. Consulting the owner’s manual, I was faced with the realization that I couldn’t read Russian. So I turned to the internet instead, where I learned that the Agat’s advance knob has a little button in the middle. When it points to a red dot, the button pops up and the camera is in rewind mode. When it points to the white dot, the film can advance. My button was clearly pointing at the red dot, but it was not raised. I tried to spin the button around to the white dot — it wouldn’t budge. I tried to gently coerce the button into popping up. It remained firmly seated.
This was the first of several hundred times that I would attempt to fix an issue by slamming the camera against a hard surface — and unlike many of the subsequent slams, this one worked. The button popped up.
Alas, that had no effect on the camera’s function, since the film still wouldn’t advance unless the button pointed toward the white dot. Noticing that the button was knurled, I pulled out a screwdriver, nestled the blade up against one of the knurled ridges and, with brute force, slowly worked the button around to the white dot.
Thus positioned, I turned the advance knob, only to watch it spin freely around the inner button causing it to point, once again, to the red dot. I repeated the brute force and screwdriver method several more times until, eventually, I could advance the film by pressing my thumb hard against the inner button while slowly and carefully rotating the knob — a technique that required about 15 seconds of fiddling between photos. Since this is a half-frame camera, that meant at least 72 fiddles per roll, which was not a viable long term solution. So I decided, upon completing this test roll, that I would super-glue the rewind button to the advance knob, allowing me to effortlessly advance the film — even though it meant I’d forever need to open the camera in a changing bag.
Exposure is set via pictograph, thus ensuring that the camera’s intended market — children in the 1980’s — would never learn the basic practice of manual exposure setting. Which worked out perfectly, given the eventual domination of smart phone cameras.
The pictographs control both the aperture and shutter speed. When the aperture gets wider, the shutter gets slower. A little table in that Russian language manual spells out the relationship precisely. What’s humorous is the documented specificity of these values: At f/2.8, the shutter speed is listed as 1/130; at f/4 it’s 1/169; at f/8 it’s 1/262. Personally, I find it rather difficult to accept that a plastic toy camera that’s unable to make a pop-up button pop-up is capable of microsecond shutter accuracy. But the Agat’s optimism did provide me with at least $1 or $2 worth of entertainment, so I was well on my way toward recouping my $31.
The Agat’s manual focussing feature is a bit more traditionally “manual” than its exposure setting, though not without issues. Focus is set by rotating a small ring around the front of the lens. The ring turns effortlessly — too effortlessly. So loose is this ring, that a gentle breeze is all the force required to rotate it out of position and, thus, out of focus — the sort of gentle breeze that can be generated by as benign an action as simply walking with the camera.
Furthermore, the camera’s discombobulation factor — its vertical design orientation — proved more discombobulating that I’d imagined. Operating it as designed requires jutting your elbows all akimbo, whilst attempting to pinch the top and bottom of the long-edge of the camera with one hand while your other hand is asked to plunge a button — located on the front face of the camera — directly toward your face. After a bit of experimenting, I discovered that holding the camera upside down felt slightly more ergonomic, though it was then impossible to read the exposure values or check the latest status of the focus ring.
Still, with all these quirks, I was encouraged, engaged, and excited to begin shooting. And for two or three shots (save for the hassle of advancing the film), I was almost happy.
On the fourth shot, I pressed the shutter button and nothing happened — a seemingly innocuous event that marks the precise moment at which I began my descent into madness.
My experience with the Agat 18K’s shutter release and transport mechanism has revealed an inadequacy in the English language. Specifically, there is no word in the dictionary that means “really, insanely, super frustratingly, annoyingly flawed.” So I’m taking the opportunity to coin the term risfaf. Feel free to add it to your daily lexicon.
That first shutter failure was, in and of itself, not overly alarming. These things sometimes happen with old film cameras, and are somewhat expected on those with dubious lineage. So I simply tried pressing the shutter again… and again… and again. Sensing a pattern, I altered my pressing technique. I came at the button from the top, the bottom, the left, and then the right. Click! On the eighth press, with the button pressed at a 45 degree angle, I finally took a photo. I jammed my thumb against the knurled button on the bottom of the camera, gingerly advanced to the next frame, awkwardly placed the camera to my eye and pressed the shutter button. Once again, the camera failed to take a shot.
Convinced I’d learned the secret method with the previous frame, I immediately tried releasing the shutter using the same 45 degree press from the right. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. After 10 or more presses from various angles, the shutter released.
With each frame came greater agitation. Twenty, and sometimes thirty presses were required to release the shutter. Sometimes it would release with a flick of the finger to the side of the button. Sometimes it would release if I rotated the button while plunging it. Only two things were certain: first, it would never release on the first several tries; and second, it would never release the same way twice.
By around the tenth shot, I was painfully aware of the sideways glances I was getting on Vancouver’s seawall. Apparently, it’s considered a form of aberrant behaviour to stand in one spot for 4 or 5 minutes, while repeatedly pushing a button on a black and yellow plastic toy camera.
My behaviour grew demonstrably more aberrant once I’d finally exhausted every possible way to push the button, and began whacking the camera against the palm of my hand. This worked for a little while, until such time that it needed firmer contact with my fist and then, eventually, the side of a building or a steel railing.
Equally annoying was that, when I did manage to finally release the shutter, the film advance knob would often freeze, requiring spectacularly barbaric whacks against the cement sidewalk before it would again allow the film to advance.
After spending nearly two hours to take a mere 20 photos of absolutely nothing worthwhile, I was overcome by a powerful desire to throw the camera in the trash. But I am neither a rash nor emotional person so, instead, I brought the camera back to the condo, sat it on the kitchen counter, and decided I’d deal with the issue the following day. Besides, after seeing how badly this camera handles, it would be a real shame if I didn’t also get to see whether its image quality was equally atrocious. I had to find a way to finish that roll.
The next day, possessed with renewed (though thoroughly unjustified) optimism, I stared at the little Agat all throughout breakfast. I knew it would haunt me until I picked it up again, so I thrust a jeweller’s loupe in my eye socket, and began to carefully inspect the camera for a solution. And sure enough, I found one!
It turns out that cheap little yellow plastic shutter release button is threaded! A whole new way to try to release the shutter! I dug through a drawer, pulled out an old school remote mechanical shutter release, and screwed it into the button. I plunged the trigger on the shutter release, and the cheesy little Agat made a decisively positive click. I shoved the camera and the remote shutter release into my pocket and took off for Canada Place.
I spent several wonderful seconds aligning pictographs, framing shots, and shielding the persnickety focus ring from the gentle, spring-like breeze — holding the camera in one hand while releasing the shutter with the cable release clutched in the other.
Buoyed by the belief that the Agat 18k had not beaten me, I proceeded to run off a string of two straight shots until, on the 3rd, the film jammed. Fortunately, one whack on the rail and all was well for another two shots — until the shutter again failed to fire. After dozens of tries with the mechanical release, I unscrewed it, and returned to the previous day’s technique of pushing the button from every possible angle, until I again resorted to smacking it against a rail for several minutes until it finally released.
Once more I pressed my thumb against the rewind button and began to slowly rotate the advance knob — until it seized up half-way to the next frame.
At this point, no amount of pushing, plunging, whacking or smashing would free the camera. It was well-and-truly frozen. I shoved the camera into my pocket and headed home.
Back in the condo, using an assortment of hammers, screwdrivers and pliers, I managed to free the transport and advance the film one more time — at which point it froze again.
With over a half-roll of film remaining, I’d had enough. I plunged the camera into the dark bag, extracted the film into my stainless tank, and dunked it in some Rodinal. It was time to see the fruits of my labours.
As bad as the camera functions, I was actually rather surprised by the image quality. It wasn’t half-bad.
Of course, “half-bad” didn’t include the numerous frames that exhibited visible light leaks, nor those in which the light leaks threatened to take over the image, nor even those times when the light leak was so egregious that it obscured the entire frame. Nor does it include all those times when the focus ring spun itself out of focus, nor those other frames when I accidentally took a selfie because the shutter released while I was smacking the camera against a firm surface…
OK. So I rarely managed to get an issue-free shot with the Agat 18K. But when it happened, it was surprisingly good — providing you don’t mind excessive barrel distortion, really soft corners, or… oh, never mind.
Granted, there’s a certain serendipitous charm to the images. But since a similar effect could easily be achieved by closing my eyes and twirling around in a circle until dizzy, I’m not sure it’s worth the frustration.
Needless to say, this is not a camera you’ll turn to when your photos require split second timing. Nor is it a camera you’ll turn to should it be absolutely essential that you take a photo some time that day. And it’s most certainly not a camera you’ll choose to use if, like me, you believe every moment of life is precious. Which is why it’s highly unlikely I will ever spool another roll of film into this thing.
What’s truly surprising is that this model — the Agat 18K — is an improved version of the older, earlier Agat 18. Since the “K” obviously stands for “Krap,” I can’t even imagine what the K-less model would have been like.
Granted, this is a 31 year old Soviet-era plastic toy camera… so one’s expectations must be sufficiently subterranean. And I’ll readily admit, given the plethora of rave reviews this camera gets on the internet, my particular model may have some accelerated degradation issues. I would be fine if the Agat’s shutter were to release oh, say, every second or third time I pressed it. And if it only locked up once or twice a roll, I’d be able to live with that. It would definitely be nice if the frame advance actually advanced the film and, when it did, wouldn’t shred the sprocket holes. I could even live with the light leaks and the free spinning focus dial. But this camera is a long way from being that camera. Quite simply, this camera is risfaf.
All photos (except for the camera itself) came from the 1/2 roll of Kentmere 100 film, which was willed through the camera, more so than wound.
All photos are untitled because they are simply unworthy of being dignified. They are, essentially, all test shots. And, as such, many aren’t even really “my” test shots, but a collaboration between myself and a malfunctioning camera. None of the photos are as intended. They are, instead, what transpired.
REMINDER: If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
