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  • Sketching With A Ricoh Auto-Half

    Sketching With A Ricoh Auto-Half

    What is a camera’s purpose? Is it to record what we see? Or is it to record what we don’t see? Is it meant to reflect reality or to abstract it?

    Most people who point a camera toward a subject expect a realistic representational photo. And while we often believe the results to be representational, rarely are they a representation of what we, as humans, experienced. Our biology simply cannot resolve as much detail as today’s digital sensors. Nor can our gummy little orbs see as wide, as far, or as deep as lens choices permit. Firmware enables us to further fine-tune that rendering to peer into shadows, extract detail from highlights and, in general, enhance an image in whatever way pleases us. Today’s cameras do not record reality — they record hyperreality.

    That’s not to imply yesterday’s film cameras were any more reality-focussed than today’s digital cameras — they just skewed more toward the surreal side of the reality spectrum.

    I’ve never had much interest in hyperreality — it’s a concept somewhat at odds with my predilection for dream logic, metaphor, and my notion that photographs should be poetry: an implied art form, rather than an explicit one.

    Every time I release the shutter, my goal is to create an abstraction of reality. And since every camera, lens, and software choice abstracts reality in a different way, I have come to think of cameras more like paint brushes than image recorders.

    Every brush has its signature. Every pen; every pencil; every bit of chalk, charcoal or crayon has a similar purpose, but produces a radically different result. The way you hold it; the ergonomics of using it; its limitations and quirks — all affect your approach to image creation, and thus, the image itself.

    In the past decade, half-frame cameras have become one of my preferred drawing implements. More akin to the coarseness of a lump of charcoal than the nuanced control of a sable hair brush, half-frame cameras record an impression rather than a description. They are ‘sketch cameras.’

    During my 2015 visit to Tokyo, I stumbled upon a cabinet full of Ricoh Auto-Halfs in an underground consignment shop. In many ways, the Auto-Half is the quirkier, cuter cousin to my Olympus Pen EE. It features a lens that’s slightly wider (25mm vs 28mm) and slightly faster (f/2.8 vs. f/3.5), yet the camera somehow manages to be about 20% smaller. But what really captivated my imagination was a big knob on the bottom, marked “W.”

    Pretty much every mechanical film camera has a rewind knob, but the Ricoh Auto-Half has two knobs — one a rewind knob (“R”) and one a wind knob (“W”). Yes, this is a wind-up camera.

    In case you’re wondering why anyone would want to wind-up a camera, think “poor man’s motor drive.” Wind-up the Ricoh, take a shot, and a spring automatically advances the film to the next frame. Crank that knob enough times, and your film will auto-advance for the next twenty or more shots.

    There, beneath the streets of Shinjuku, I fell in love with the Ricoh Auto-Half in that wholly unnatural, embarrassingly lustful way in which grown men sometimes develop an irrational infatuation with gadgets. I absolutely had to have one.

    Ricoh, as best I can tell, made several trillion of these back in the 1960’s. And while everyone in Japan must have a half-dozen buried in a drawer, they never seemed to catch on in North America. So I knew, if I was ever going to score a good one, I’d have to do it in Japan.

    Alas, after spending over an hour digging through that pile of Auto-Halfs, neither myself nor the shopkeeper could locate a single working version. Several days later, I did find a rather expensive, collectible, gold-plated model in a much classier shop. But I just couldn’t see myself walking around Vancouver with that thing blinging up and down the sidewalks, so I left Tokyo without buying a Ricoh Auto-Half.

    On my return to Tokyo in 2018, one of my very first visits was to that same underground camera shop. As I’d hoped, its cabinets were bulging with a ‘fresh’ new pile of Auto-Halfs. I rolled up my sleeves, fired up Google Translate, and used it to coerce the shopkeeper into rolling up his. The dig was on.

    Fifteen minutes later, we had found not one, but two mechanically functioning cameras. One was dashingly adorned with a checkered flag pattern and some little race car graphics; the other was plain ol’ silver. Possessing, as I do, a rather minimalist design sensibility, the choice was an easy one. I handed over a few yen, popped in some film, wound up the camera and hit the street with my little silver Ricoh.

    One thing I couldn’t test in the shop was the selenium cell meter. Because they gradually deteriorate with age (and particularly with exposure to light), I immediately rejected any camera without an attached lens and photocell cover. While the cover’s presence doesn’t guarantee that the previous owner had actually used it, its absence guarantees they didn’t. So my first order of business was to buy one of those ubiquitous rolls of inexpensive Fuji color negative film that seem to be all over Tokyo, shoot some tests, then get prints made at one of the equally ubiquitous photo labs. To my delight, the meter worked flawlessly.

    Had it not worked, I could have theoretically resorted to the camera’s manual exposure mode. But without access to a portable electron microscope, I’d never be able to resolve the tiny aperture legend on the top dial. Even after I got the camera home, and with a jewellers’ loupe stuck to my eye, I still couldn’t read the tiny text. Suffice to say, unless your vision really is as hyperreal as a digital camera, the manual exposure setting on this camera is utterly useless. So too is the fixed and rather languid 1/30s shutter speed when it’s engaged. Auto exposure uses a snappier 1/125s shutter speed.

    Also barely visible, is the frame counter on the bottom of the camera. Happily, it’s bigger than the aperture text, so anyone choosing to shoot this camera in public can always introduce themselves to the nearest teenager, and politely ask them to read the counter.

    Framelines in the viewfinder are suggestive at best, and barrel distortion is quite pronounced. The shutter (located on the front of the camera) is silent, but the auto-wind is not. Fortunately, the camera takes a photo when you press down on the shutter release, but doesn’t advance until you release it. I quickly learned to grab a shot, keep the shutter release held down, then walk away to advance the film.

    With its fixed focus lens, The Ricoh has a minimum focus distance of 1.5m (5 feet). Anything closer will be rendered in glorious washes of fuzz. Suffice to say, this is not a camera you’ll gravitate toward for portrait work — unless you’re the sort of contrarian who likes sharp backgrounds and bokeh people. Not that backgrounds (or anything else) in this camera are particularly sharp.

    What might sound like a whole lot of belly aching is actually me professing my love for the Ricoh Auto-Half. This is the most fun I’ve had shooting a camera since the Widelux first graced my shelves. The half frame format satisfies my low-fidelity leanings and dovetails seamlessly with my frugality. Routinely yielding 77 frames per roll, the Auto-Half frees me to experiment; to take an extra shot or two of a single subject; to risk a shot in spite of improbable odds; and to dabble in a bit of grainy impressionism.

    Sketching with film completely alters the way I see, and it redefines what I think makes a photograph. The results are sometimes mysterious, occasionally moody, often fleeting, frequently grungy, and always every bit as hazy as memory itself.

    ©2019 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    This post features the return of the vBook — that exorbitant consumer of precious time, which I continue to believe is the optimum way to share online photo collections… even if I’m the only one who thinks this. But since the Ricoh Auto-Half is a “sketch camera,” and since sketches sit most comfortably in a sketch book, the vBook seemed the only viable way to effectively convey this camera’s true purpose.

    Because the Ricoh has been my constant companion for the past three months, it’s seen many rolls of film pass through it, including Tri-X pulled to ISO 200, Delta 100 pulled to ISO 50, and Delta 100 shot at box speed (all developed in Rodinal 1:50), plus some Fuji Superia 200, shot at box speed and developed in a commercial lab. All make an appearance in the “Diptych Roulette” vBook and in the two additional photos accompanying this post.

    The music is the result of a frantic afternoon compose-a-thon, featuring improvised sound design and 1-take performances on numerous synthesizers, including the Novation Peak, DSI/Oberheim OB-6, an obsessively extensive eurorack modular setup, and a sprinkling of software-based instruments.

    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.

  • Celebration of Life

    Celebration of Life

    I’d rather be good than popular. Ideally, I’d like to be both, but this is the real world I’m living in.

    It doesn’t matter whether it’s my photography, my music, or my writing efforts — being “good” is the only motivation I require. The upside is that I, and I alone, get to define what “good” means. The down side is that I’m a mercilessly harsh critic — but that’s exactly how one gets to be gooder.

    I’m not sure whether my passion to improve is what drives my existential obsessions, or whether it’s driven by them. But every now and then, I find myself mired in an exploration of the flip side of existence — non-existence. Don’t be alarmed; I’ve been thinking about my demise rather frequently for at least 40 years. I find a dash of nihilism really helps me cope with the rest of my day.

    It also helps me see things in a different light. In this case, mixing thoughts of non-existence with thoughts of self improvement has revealed a flaw in my decision to trade away popularity for self-gooderization — specifically, its impact on my future Celebration of Life memorial service.

    By eschewing popularity, I’ve guaranteed myself an embarrassingly sparse ceremony. Even worse, if I put in the effort needed to get truly good, I might fail to establish the quorum of friends necessary to have such a celebration at all.

    So with this in mind, I started to wonder what my Celebration of Life might actually look like? Aside from its glaring lack of attendance, that is.

    One obstacle to a successful service became immediately apparent — a significant paucity of photos of me beyond the age of 16. Teenage dorkiness doesn’t motivate one’s parents to snap off many shots. And I’m pretty certain, as an adult, no one ever looked at me and thought, “Gee, I’d sure like to have a photograph to remind me of this guy.”

    Anyone who walks past my service’s open doorway, peers into the empty banquet room, and catches site of my “life in pictures” presentation will surely wonder, “What tragedy robbed such a young man of a life just beginning?” Undoubtedly confused by my seemingly anachronistic 1970’s fashion choices, I can imagine them shaking their heads in pity and saying, “Poor child must not have been right in the head. He’s in a better place now.”

    Horrified by the realization that I would continue to be as misunderstood in death as I was in life, I decided I would need to either start taking selfies or hire a personal photographer. But the thought of resorting to selfies was at odds with my whole goodification process, while the very idea of having someone follow me around taking pictures seemed just a tiny bit narcissistic — even for me. Besides, such drastic action would only be for the benefit of passers by — it would have no effect on convincing anyone to actually attend my memorial.

    Perhaps the bulk of the people who appreciate me enough to celebrate my death are the folks who don’t actually know me — like the people who read this blog. So I’m considering making my future Celebration of Life an online celebration. The benefits are numerous. It wouldn’t upset anyone’s busy schedule or interfere with their weekend plans. No man would need to don a suit, nor woman an elegant but simple dress. People could attend my Celebration of Life any time they wished, adorned only in their underwear and chowing down on a bowl of Fruit Loops — exactly as they greet the arrival of each new ULTRAsomething article. Plus, there will be photos-a-go-go. Sure, they won’t be photos of me, but they’ll be photos by me, which is what we’re ultimately celebrating here.

    But how will the internet know I’m dead? And how will you know it’s time to celebrate that fact? Technology probably holds the key: Perhaps some sort of app that hooks into the heart rate monitor in my smart watch can detect when heart failure occurs, thus auto-generating a pre-written obituary and triggering de-encryption of my Celebration of Life web page, which I was clever enough to create and upload while still alive. Of course, this means I’ll need to start wearing a watch, but such is the sacrifice I must make for choosing good over popular.

    My fear is that I might do something to trigger a “false positive.” What if it’s a hot day, and I decide not to wear my smart watch? I’m fairly certain it won’t detect my pulse from the charging tray on my night stand. The last thing I want is to have everyone start celebrating my death, only to have the party interrupted by an embarrassing tweet that says, “Oops. Smart watch snafu. Still alive. Sorry.” If that were to happen, no one’s ever going to celebrate my real death.

    I don’t know. Obviously I’ve still got quite a few issues to work through, so I guess I should plan to stick around a bit longer. Besides, I’m nowhere near good enough to die yet.

    ©2019 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    For those who enjoy metaphors, this selection of photos is blatantly obvious. Probably just as obvious as identifying which photo(s) were shot with a Ricoh GR; an Olympus OM-D E-M1 w/17mm f1.2 lens; or a Minolta TC-1 on Tri-X would be for a camera nerd.

    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.

  • Elimination Dancing

    Elimination Dancing

    Elimination Dancing

    Photography is the art of subtraction. Unlike painters, who begin with a blank canvas and build images stroke-by-stroke, photographers select their images from a sphere of visual information — a sphere centred around the photographer, and which follows their every movement through space and time. But since 4-dimensional objects don’t adhere to the impositions of a standard IKEA picture frame, substantive eliminations are needed to extract optically manageable wafers from within.

    The first thing most photographers flush is the time dimension — extracting individual slices from its ever-advancing trajectory. Using a shutter speed of only 1/60s, a photographer has 3,600 potentially different time slices available every minute — 5.2 million options per day.

    Having selected the most significant centisecond, photographers must next decide both how large a bite to take out of that big, bulbous visual sphere, and where exactly to take that bite. For example, a 50mm lens on a full-frame 35mm camera takes a bite that’s 39.6 degrees wide by 27 degrees tall. When you point that lens in one direction, you immediately exclude 99.2% of the area surrounding you. Since your 50mm lens is at the centre of a 360 degree sphere, this means you actually have a choice of 121 different views every 1/60s — none of which will contain a single duplicate element. That increases your number of unique daily photo possibilities to 630 million.

    Within each of these 630 million options, photographers must then decide how best to flatten their wedge’s depth dimension, and render it onto a 2-dimensional plane. Focus is the most common means of achieving this, so for the sake of simplicity, let’s say that each bite-sized wedge offers only four different focus options: close-up; near; mid; and infinite. That quadruples the total number of photographic possibilities to over 2.5 billion per day. Which is precisely why I tend to roll my eyes every time someone tells me there’s nothing to photograph.

    Now if you’re the least bit normal, 2.5 billion daily potential photographs might seem like a reasonable enough number. But if you’re like me, then you know there are billions more options available if you just keep on eliminating things.

    For example, I long ago chose to eliminate color from my work — further distilling the number of elements contained within my own four-dimensional space.

    So, too, have I jettisoned the need for fidelity or the notion that a photograph needs to render anything more substantial than a vague suggestion. Half-frame film cameras; grossly over- or under-exposed shots; long-shutter speeds; aggressive development and extreme cropping — these are all ways to eliminate any bourgeois ideas of what constitutes ‘quality.’ Eliminating detail through blown highlights or blocked shadows further refines an image through subtraction.

    Any why must the subject of a photo define an object? Can’t we eliminate that old trope and simply photograph a mood?

    Similarly, once you eliminate the idea that photography must provide an answer, you allow it to become the question.

    Even after all this — after all the elimination, removals and deductions required to even take a photo — there comes further distillation through the process of photo selection and curation.

    Photography requires absolutely no skill beyond the ability to choose. Photography is abstraction through subtraction. The more you subtract, the more your photo is likely to say something. Paradoxically — and this is the hardest thing for most photographers to accept — the more your photos have something to say, the fewer people will hear. Should this matter, you can always resort to using one of those nifty little Ricoh Theta spherical video cameras. Me? I’m still working out how best to eliminate both light and shadow.

    ©2019 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    Those of a certain age may recognize this post is named after what I consider to be one of Bow Wow Wow’s lesser songs. Having given exactly zero thought to this song in over 35 years, it would be easy to dismiss this as a coincidence. But if you’re one of those people who believes there’s no such thing as coincidence, then perhaps my id was subconsciously aware this may well be one of my lesser articles, and leapt across the decades to make the connection.

    All photos in this article are from November’s two week Tokyo walkathon/shootathon, and were shot with either my trusty Ricoh GR; an Olympus OM-D EM1 with a 17mm f/1.2 Pro lens; a Leitz Minolta CL with a 40mm f/2 Rokkor lens; or a half-frame, point-and-shoot Ricoh Auto Half. I’ll leave it to you to guess which photos came from which camera. Ideally, if I do my job correctly, it shouldn’t matter one bit.

    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.

  • The Anomaly

    The Anomaly

    The Anomaly

    Statistics show that 99% of all new blogs die within their first year. On 14 Dec 2008, ULTRAsomething became one of those new blogs. And today, 14 Dec 2018, it turned ten years old — making it a genuine blogging anomaly.

    Perhaps even more anomalous is the fact ULTRAsomething’s ongoing existence came not from beating those odds, but from defying them.

    Consider those same statistics, which suggest that a failure to attract a significant number of readers is the main reason that bloggers stop blogging. But ULTRAsomething’s still around — and not only has it never risen above a statistically insignificant audience size, but the site’s current per-article engagement rate is just 10% of what it was several years ago. So I have not only failed to increase my readership, but I’ve actually seen it diminish by an order of magnitude.

    Which is perhaps an indication that ULTRAsomething is not an anomaly because of its success, but because of some untreated mental illness.

    Most researchers conclude that the single biggest impediment to having a successful blog is simply that the author never defined its purpose. But in the last ten years, I have defined several. ULTRAsomething began with the purpose of giving additional online validity to my flagging commercial photography endeavours. Instead of increasing my client base, I learned that I no longer wanted to be a commercial photographer.

    With a decent aggregate of articles under my belt, I shifted the site’s purpose away from obtaining gainful employment through photography to obtaining gainful employment through writing. Surely, I thought, someone somewhere would discover ULTRAsomething and offer me a paid writing gig. Nope.

    So the site’s purpose morphed again. Instead of using it to attract an employer, it would become the employer. I placed less emphasis on attracting thoughtful readers and more emphasis on attracting all readers. A large reader base would surely entice various photography companies to sponsor ULTRAsomething, thus making it a source of badly needed income. Instead, I learned that attracting enough readers meant I would need to produce content condoning all the things I abhor about photography. I wasn’t willing to do that, and no companies — no matter how niche — were niche enough to sponsor the likes of ULTRAsomething.

    So I pushed the repurpose button once more — making the site take on a supporting role in a more noble and grander goal. I wanted, more than anything, to establish and open the Vancouver Centre for Photography — a gallery, library, bookstore, and educational facility in which the public could discover the sort of love for photography that I have. Where good photography is not seen as a sharply rendered copy of an object in time and space, but as a means of expression; as a language; and as an art form. Instead of achieving this, I learned how frustrating it is to have a dream that no other living soul shared, nor even saw a need for.

    Which ultimately led me to the site’s current goal, which is simply to have no goal. And yet, propelled by such willful and supposedly devastating lack of purpose, ULTRAsomething has managed to turn ten years old.

    What happens next? I haven’t a clue. And I like it that way. I still want to open the Vancouver Centre for Photography… only it’s a dream now being funded through the purchase of lottery tickets rather than subtle, blog-based persuasion. And those so-called experts? The ones who claim that a blog must have a purpose if it’s to survive? I counter that argument with this month’s text and photos.

    So thanks for reading! Thanks for the witty comments! Thanks for the donations! And thanks for all the times you let me know this site brings you a modicum of enjoyment.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a rash of Tokyo photos to sift through…

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    The previous two photos are metaphorically literate (is that possible?) examples of anomalies. But I figured, as long as I’m writing a post called “The Anomaly,” maybe I should include some genuine photographic anomalies — color photos!

    It’s probably been seven or eight years since I posted a color photo on this site. People frequently question why this is — often assuming I’m trying to make some sort of statement, or attempting to artificially imbue my photos with a sort of gravitas. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason I shoot almost exclusively black & white is that I’m absolutely horrible at color photography. Because my photos are rarely about the object in the frame and more often meant to convey a mood or suggest a metaphor, color often detracts from what I want a photo to say. The eye is drawn to luminosity, contrast and saturated colors. In the field, my brain works just quickly enough to find a way to encapsulate a scene’s luminosity and its contrast. By eliminating color, I eliminate the need to worry about how colors will attract or repel a viewer’s eye — and whether those colors will enhance or detract from the message. So my freezer contains only B&W negative film, my primary digital camera is a Leica Monochrom, and when I do shoot with a color digital camera, I have Lightroom automatically convert those images to B&W on import so that I never even see the images in color.

    There is only one exception to this rule — one anomaly. Occasionally… VERY occasionally… I’ll take a photo that’s actually about the color. Because Tokyo is such a wonderfully colorful city, I found myself purposely shooting ‘in color’ on several occasions. So what the heck, why not post a few of these in the footnote? It’s not like this site has a purpose or anything…

    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.

  • Introspection: Tokyo

    Introspection: Tokyo

    Introspection: Tokyo

    FINAL UPDATE: 20 NOV 2018

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE TROG (TRAVEL BLOG):

    I used to read magazines. Yes, it’s true — I’m that old. And several years ago, whilst perusing one of those publications, I happened upon an article documenting its author’s trip to exotic, far away Vancouver — my home. Buried within the usual assortment of tourist shots and factoids about totem poles and steam clocks, sat a photo of an alley just one block from where I live. Accompanying that photo was some rather self-congratulatory pronouncement about how the author, because he was such an adventurous sort, had ‘discovered’ this unknown alley. Discovered it? I walk past it every single day on my way to the market. So do about 100,000 other people.

    I immediately crossed “travelogue” off my list of books to one day write. The idea suddenly seemed absurd: a photographer travels to some distant land and writes about the customs and culture as if no one on earth had ever before experienced them — oblivious to the fact there are millions of people living, working, loving and playing right in the very place they’re portraying as ‘exotic.’ Never mind that we have this little thing called “the internet,” with which we can instantly gaze upon several hundred million photos of every “out of the way” tourist spot on the planet or fire up Google Street View and wander any alley we wish. Cultural differences? This is rapidly becoming one world — connected through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and instant messaging. It’s not like the western hemisphere hasn’t a clue what those crazy people in the eastern hemisphere are wearing. More often than not, we’re now all wearing the same thing. Travelogues struck me as the textbook definition of ethnocentrism.

    Of course, none of this means I don’t enjoy going places. Nor does it mean I’m not excited to see or experience things that I, personally, don’t get to see or experience on a daily basis. But that doesn’t mean millions of others don’t. Or haven’t. And since ULTRAsomething’s audience is a global audience, it would be rather silly of me to wax poetic about my travels.

    So then what’s up with that live travel blog at the top of this article? The one that looks a whole lot like poetic waxing? Doesn’t its existence negate the very thing I seek to avoid?

    I would postulate not. And the reason for this is because it’s in no way ethnocentric — it’s egorcentric — and you’re welcome to read it and see. In fact, I welcome you to check in and read it every day or two — because unlike this site’s more typically lethargic publication schedule, I’ll be updating it semi-regularly while I’m in Tokyo — you know, like a real blogger.

    Über-ULTRA readers may wish to set a reminder on their smart phones to check daily for fresh content. I’ll be sure to put the latest update date (Tokyo time) at the top of this page (just remember to refresh your browser to check for new content). Those of you who can’t bear the suspenseful gulf between updates may prefer to wait and binge read it after I return to Vancouver.

    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… not to mention the expense of undertaking another introspective journey to Tokyo.

  • Shrinking Pains

    Shrinking Pains

    Growth. Our culture seems obsessed with it. Financial growth; personal growth; spiritual growth. Whether it’s more social media followers or a shaggier Chia Pet — everyone seeks more.

    And since we’re humans, it’s not enough that we crave growth — we actually feel compelled to complain when it happens. In fact, we complain about it so often that we gave it a name: growing pains. But when was the last time you heard someone mention “shrinking pains?” We humans are just as capable of shrinking as growing, but you rarely hear anyone boasting about it.

    In the last decade, the closest I’ve come to experiencing anything that resembled a “growing pain” was when my supply of toilet paper and paper towels ran out simultaneously, and I replenished both in a single Costco visit. The influx of rolled paper products was too much for my tiny condo to absorb. I slipped many of the larger rolls into pillow cases and placed them beneath real pillows on the bed, like a set of faux bolsters. Smaller rolls were wedged into the ceiling, like bundled stacks of drug money — nestled between the pipes, studs, and wiring conduits via an access hole for the water shutoff valve.

    After that experience, I vowed to never again undertake such unfettered growth. Which, admittedly, was a rather easy vow to keep, since shrinking is a topic with which I’m far more familiar. Whether it’s shrinking income, shrinking influence, shrinking readership, or even shrinking height. Seriously, how is it I’m 2 cm shorter than I was twenty years ago?

    When my ex moved out last year, she took a truckload of cookbooks, clothing, kitchen gadgets, plants, knick-knacks, keepsakes and furniture with her. In stark comparison to the paper products bonanza of yore, I found myself with the opposite problem: far less stuff than places to put it.

    In order to give the illusion that I didn’t live in an empty condo, I became the great disperser. I mastered the art of taking a pair of empty cardboard boxes and arranging them jauntily on a shelving unit — making it look as if such minimalism was an actual choice. Two lone candle sticks sit at opposite ends of a shelf, the space between them a shrine to the beauty of negative space. A single camera was placed on another shelf — the expanse around it inviting guests to scrutinize the device as if it were an object of art, rather than an object to make art.

    Once I tackled the visible void, I concerned myself with the cavernous emptiness of that which was hidden — the numerous empty drawers, kitchen cabinets and closets that, when opened, revealed nothing beyond another yawning chasm of zilch.

    So I took my modicum of stuff from its two or three carefully organized locations and spread it around the condo — some charging cables and batteries in this drawer, a backup hard drive and some thumb drives in that cupboard, and so on. A single extra roll of dental floss took possession of an entire medicine cabinet; a bathmat for the unused second shower commandeered an expansive drawer in the vanity beneath the sink; a bass guitar hangs from an otherwise barren bedroom closet clothes rod. I repeatedly combed through my belongings, until I succeeded in placing something into every nook and cranny of the condo — a new, spacious spot for everything!

    The result? In spite of the fact there is demonstrably less stuff in my condo now than two years ago, I can no longer find anything. It used to be, when I needed something, I knew exactly which drawer to empty out and search through. Now, searching for something is like a scavenger hunt — sifting through clues from my memory while I ransack the condo, opening every door and drawer in a frantic search for my pliers.

    Ultimately, other than the fact people are less likely to share them on a world-renowned blogging site, shrinking pains are no different than growing pains — they’re merely a side effect of change. Personally, I don’t fear growth, and I don’t fear shrinking — both are the inevitable result of living, loving, experimenting, and evolving. The one thing I do fear is remaining static. Because nothing tortures me quite like the horror of stagnation pains.

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    These photos are so blatantly and literally connected to the article that I may well have jeopardized any chance to win this year’s “Obtuse Photographer of the Year” award.

    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.

  • Maturity

    Maturity

    In my day, we didn’t have some fancy smart phone to tell us what day it was — we had calendars. Made out of paper! With dates printed on the pages. The greater the number of calendars one had scribbled upon and discarded, the more one was thought to be ‘mature.’

    But a calendar implies maturity like a “best before” date implies that a package of Strawberry Pop Tarts was ever good to begin with. That’s because calendars lie. Just like statistics. Or anyone who has ever responded to their dental hygienist by stating, “Yes, I floss after every meal.”

    In spite of having personally discarded so many calendars that the local land fill was renamed in my honor, I never felt all that mature. Even though it takes me 17 minutes to scroll down through one of those new-fangled pop-up date fields when entering my birth year in an online form — I’m still not ready to give up giggling as a pastime. Besides, I’m a grown man who plays with synthesizers for a living. It’s fun, yes. But high school kids can bag french fries for more money than I make. And if you don’t think income and maturity have anything to do with one another, you’re probably not tuned-in to dating euphemisms, in which “mature” is a code word for “rich.”

    So I simply came to accept “man child” as further proof of my Girlfriend Theorem calculations, and got on with the business of giggling at the wheezing, bubbling, alien burping sounds that I program into my synthesizers.

    But one day, with no warning and without premonition, it happened — that one singular instant when a steel girder whacks you on the side of the head, knocking you clear across the divide and into maturity.

    For me, that girder arrived in the form of a pineapple.

    I’d returned from a trip to the grocery store and had just unloaded two bags full of blueberries, oranges, avocados, tomatoes, bok choy, broccolini, and other assorted fruits and vegetables — one of which was the pineapple now yielding to the ferocity of my knife.

    And it dawned on me. There wasn’t a single processed food item in those bags. When did this happen? When did going to the grocery store not mean coming home with a couple sacks filled with frozen pizza, Hot Pockets, Stouffer’s lasagna, a baguette, pasta, runny cheese, Cheetos, chocolate chip cookies and a pint of ice cream?

    What the hell happened to me?

    I got… what’s the word for it?… Old!

    Now this isn’t exactly new news. The mirrors in my home have been telling me this for years, and mirrors (unlike calendars) don’t lie. But the mirrors only tell you that you’re old on the outside. Those two sacks of groceries? They told me I was old on the inside.

    I wasn’t quite sure what to think of the fact I’d now crossed the threshold to maturity. So I did what any mature man would do. I slumped into the sofa, grabbed the remote control, and surfed around until I found an old episode of “Murder, She Wrote” on the television.

    Some time during the fifth commercial break for pharmaceuticals (“Ask your doctor about JOYarex™”), I started to feel a bit depressed about this whole maturity bag. All those ads — showing all those happy seniors walking arm-in-arm on a deserted beach at sunset — offered a far more enticing vision of maturity than sitting alone on the couch watching television. “Hey Siri,” I said to an iPhone so outdated that only a geezer could own it, “remind me to ask my doctor about JOYarex.”

    By the seventh commercial break for pharmaceuticals (“side effects of YOUTHenasia™ may include misinterpretation of your intentions”), I decided to hunt for the bright side of this maturity issue. And while I didn’t manage to find an entire bright side, I was able to locate a few tiny patches of filtered light. So I’ve decided to embrace whatever speckles of sunlight exist, and incorporate them into my new mature lifestyle. I figured it would be preferable to succumbing to the allure of a YOUTHenasia prescription and its worrisome side effects.

    So here are a few maturity-related lifestyle changes I’ve decided to adopt in an effort to act my age:

    First, I will now refer to anyone under the age of 40 as a “whippersnapper.” Never mind that I don’t have any idea what this means — it just sounds mature. So I figure tossing the term around like a football at a backyard bar-b-que is bound to secure me the respect and admiration someone of my maturity deserves.

    Second, any future “girlfriend” will now be referred to as “my lover.” Why tiptoe around semantics when the smile on my face will make it clearly evident what’s really going on. Introducing a woman as “my lover” paints me as both mature and suave.

    Third, from here on out, I will spitefully reject any new technology, trend or methodology. “What’s that a drone? If I need to photograph from a high angle, I’ll carry a ladder, the way nature intended!”

    And finally, because youth always appreciates hearing about the hardships endured by their elders, every article I write will now begin with the words, “In my day…”

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    “DNA” is the sort of photo that the immature version of me would have taken. I have yet to reconcile the fact I took this photo after my incident with the pineapple.

    “Commuter 1” and “Commuter 2” clearly depict people who haven’t yet had their pineapple incidents. Then again, if I thought I could ride a skateboard down the middle of the street without a significantly elevated likelihood of death, I would probably do so.

    Which makes me think… Maybe it takes more than a couple of bags full of produce to cross the maturity threshold? Perhaps it’s not even a threshold at all? Maybe it’s just the first sign of a process? That would be good — ’cause I’m really not ready to give up giggling yet.

    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.

  • The Gym

    The Gym

    I’ve been going to the gym for nearly five years now. Most times, I’m the only one there — which is nice because no one will see me hyperventilate. I toil away, lost in a hazy sort of half-meditative state built specifically to shelter my conscious mind from the horrors of physical exertion. There is only silence, punctuated by the clanking of machinery, grunting, and (when things get a bit intense) a mumbled outburst of glossolalia from my inner-demons, who apparently dislike agony as much as I.

    When there are others present, they’re usually the type who prefer the idea of working out more than the actual act. In spite of that whole introverted, introspective, misanthropic vibe of mine, I actually enjoy sharing the gym with these folks. Seeing them makes me feel like I’m some kind of super athlete. I’m not, of course, but when I workout, I workout to excess. Grumpy demons not withstanding, I’m there to do a job — and I get down to it. So when I see these people walk in, lounge around, lift a weight or two; check their cell phones; send some texts; take a few selfies; walk on a treadmill for two minutes and then preen endlessly in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, I ask myself: “Who do they think they’re kidding?” Going to the gym is not the same thing as working out. You don’t lose weight, tone muscle, build strength, or improve your cardiovascular system by some contact osmosis with gymnasium air. People who frequently brag about having just spent an hour at the gym are probably telling the truth — but what they haven’t told you is they spent that hour catching up on their Instagram feed. So when I share the gym with these folks, I get to feel smug. Which is fun. I don’t get to feel smug very often.

    But once in a blue moon, a yoga girl shows up. I never know where they came from or why they chose to exercise in my building on that particular day. I only know that they pop in, make me feel totally inadequate, and then disappear — never to be seen again. I’m not talking about the sort of yoga girl who signs up for the occasional class so she has an excuse to buy some new Lululemon pants and indulge in a post-yoga blueberry peach cinnamon soy milk chocolate chip honey banana smoothie. I’m talking about real yoga girls — with their nitinol bones and chimp-humbling feats of strength. Real yoga girls are real athletes. So whenever one enters the gym, all my smugness evaporates and my workout routine becomes anything but.

    Yesterday was one of those once-in-a-blue-moon days. The girl wasn’t exactly what I’d call ‘my type,’ but she did have a body that was seemingly carved from a block of solid velvet — reason enough to send my hormones scurrying about like a bunch of headless chickens.

    Now in spite of my actions suggesting otherwise, I’m not an idiot. I know there’s exactly zero hope that any yoga girl will ever acknowledge my existence, and I have plenty of first-hand experience to support my hopelessness. But headless hormones are senseless hormones, so I did what I always do: I shifted my workout into overdrive in an effort to impress her with my own brand of stoic athleticism. Never mind that my workout routine is already designed to drive me to near extinction. More weight! More reps! More speed! More everything! It was perhaps the most gut-wrenching workout of my life, and I had every right to feel proud — had I not felt so ashamed of my fatuous motivations.

    Eventually, the inevitable came knocking — as the inevitable always does — and I reached that point where the body cries uncle, and starts shutting itself down. The ears are the first to surrender — relinquishing their demand for blood and resulting in the sudden cessation of all sound. The eyes go soon after and the room grows dimmer than midnight under a new moon. My head spins and gravity begins to exert itself, as if trying to screw my body into the floor.

    With unconsciousness looming, I weighed the optics of passing out in the middle of the gym vs. quitting and going back upstairs. Exhibiting my first bit of common sense in nearly an hour, I chose to slink out of the gym and into the hallway to catch the next elevator.

    Surprisingly, she exited the gym 20 seconds after I did — coinciding with the elevator’s arrival. I held the door. She stepped in, pushed the button for her floor and flashed me a smile. The sheer novelty of her acknowledgement collided head on with my patented brand of social ineptness, and I realized I hadn’t a clue what to say. Which is why I then asked, “are you one of those people who actually likes to work out?”

    “Oh yes!” she exclaimed. “I love it. I’ll work out 4 or 5 hours a day when I get a chance. There’s nothing I enjoy more than being in the gym. What about you?”

    Either the girl was nearsighted or my physical prowess actually fooled a real yoga girl into believing I was a machine of a man. I could have lied. Maybe I should have lied. But lying just isn’t in my DNA. Besides, my heart was currently diverting blood away from the body’s more motivational organs and toward what it deemed to be my most pressing bodily function — remaining upright and conscious.

    “I hate it.” I answered. “I’ve hated it for years. I hated it today. I’ll hate it tomorrow. I’ll hate it until I die.”

    She looked stunned, but I wasn’t done. “Honestly,” I continued, “I think that whole endorphins thing is a myth; a fictitious drug conceived by the fitness industry and marketed to people who want to believe they can get high without sticking a needle in their arm and transacting business in a seedy urban back alley.”

    Apparently real yoga girls don’t value honesty as highly as I do, because her smile disappeared and a stony silence filled the elevator, for what seemed like hours, until we arrived at her floor. “This is me,” she said, hurriedly slipping her solid velvet body through the tiny crack of a doorway not yet a quarter of the way open.

    “Just as well,” I thought to myself. “She’s probably going to grab a spoonful of quinoa before heading out for a 10 mile jog around the seawall.” Knowing that my own post-workout plans involved a short shower and a long nap, I took comfort in the fact that she wasn’t exactly what I’d call ‘my type.’

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE ARTICLE:

    Regular readers know this is where I usually provide some additional information about whatever media accompanies an article, but this time I opted to use this space to discuss the article itself. Those of you wondering why you’ve just endured such a fluffy bit of literary cotton candy probably missed the previous article, The Corner. It foretells a future in which articles such as this can comfortably exist — a future in which a dissertation titled, “A Clinical Analysis of Edge Distortion in Wide Angle Lenses” could follow an article called, “Those Darn Adorable Doggies,” and precede an article titled “Feet: Why So Many Toes?” Welcome to the future.

    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.

  • The Corner

    The Corner

    I have two announcements to make. One is that today marks the end of the ULTRAsomething site; and two is that today marks the beginning of the ULTRAsomething site.

    Each announcement warrants a bit of exposition.

    The End

    I’ll let you in on a little secret. I had every intention of shutting down this site on 14 Dec 2018, which will be the 10th anniversary of the first ULTRAsomething post.

    When I started the “blog” (an anachronistic term at this point), I pledged to myself that I would write at least one post every calendar month. No matter if I was sick; or busy; or grumpy; or simply had nothing to say — I was going to be no less disciplined than the folks at the utility company, who never once failed to present me with my monthly electric bill.

    Unfortunately, I neglected to set an expiry date for this little exercise. Looking back, I think I expected the site to last no more than a year or two. Surely, by that time, I would have sold the movie rights; Ryan Gosling would have won an Oscar for his portrayal of me; and I’d be pimping my latest collection of bound essays on the late-night talkshow circuit.

    By year three, it was apparent this scenario might have been a wee bit optimistic. So I trudged on and continued to honor my pledge. It wasn’t always easy, and I had to get a bit creative on occasion — once going so far as to post an article on the final day of the month, which stated simply that I was posting an article just so I could say I posted an article. Think what you want about ULTRAsomething, but I’ve never been afraid to go ‘meta.’

    I believe it was at this exact point, seven years in, when I finally faced facts: ULTRAsomething was an albatross, and I needed an exit strategy. So I decided to give myself three more years, and then pull the plug on the site’s 10th birthday. Ten years sounded like a masochistically impressive number — one that would hopefully convince someone to bother writing me an obituary one day.

    The dream of ULTRAsomething’s cessation sustained and nourished me for a full three years. “31 more articles to go.” “30 more articles to go.” “29 more articles to go…”

    Earlier this year, when the countdown reached “9,” I started to think more seriously about the finale. Should I simply surprise everyone with a “Sayounara Suckers!” post on December 14th? Or should I have a protracted farewell in which I express heartfelt thanks to my 17 faithful readers, and ride into the sunset on the back of a few ‘greatest hits’ and ‘fondest memories’ posts?

    The more I planned for ULTRAsomething’s demise, the more I realized I couldn’t picture my life without it. Without ULTRAsomething, how would I artificially justify my existence? What would happen if I finally took a good photo, but no longer had a place to post it? What if I had a thought, which I knew would appeal to at least 6 of those 17 readers? How would I share it with them? What would be my new, post-ULTRAsomething identity? Would I even have an identity?

    Fear and uncertainty were beginning to taint my feelings of jubilant anticipation. So I asked myself a difficult question: Is pulling the plug really the best solution?

    I am at the corner of yesterday and tomorrow. I know where I came from; I know where I am; but where will I go? I have three choices. One, I can terminate the site as originally intended, allowing ULTRAsomething to die with dignity and a modicum of grace. Two, I can let it live as it has — watching it dodder and drool to a feeble and insignificant conclusion. Or three, I can have it murdered!

    The Beginning

    The lurid sensationalism of the murder option is simply too attractive to ignore. So here’s what’s happening: Rather than heroically pulling the plug on December 14th; and rather than gutlessly watching ULTRAsomething stagger and stumble towards oblivion; I am going to strip it naked, cover it in wildebeest blood, strap a parachute to its back, and drop it smack into the middle of the Olare Motorogi Conservancy in Maasai Mara.

    In less metaphorical terms, this means I’m shedding myself of the old notion that articles must somehow tangentially relate to photography, music, or the creative process. Rather, the site is simply going to be the creative process. I’m going to write what I want, when I want, as often as I want. If I don’t wish to write an article one month, I won’t. If I wish to write three articles one month, I will. If I wish to write a detailed compendium on the history of the slide rule, you’ll get to read it. A collection of gluten-free cricket recipes? Why not? I might even get around to finishing my dissertation on the comparative charms of various 1970’s Italian cinema genre actresses (spoiler alert: Edwige Fenech comes out on top).

    Freed from its self-imposed tyranny, ULTRAsomething will no longer pretend to be a niche site. Instead, it will pretend to be a frothy, general-interest, lifestyle and entertainment site. Which means it will compete head-to-head with other such sites — most of which seem to thrive on salacious celebrity gossip, fashion tips, and a miles-long stream of food photos and selfies. If you’re wondering how something as contrarian as ULTRAsomething can possibly survive when pitted against such banality in a battle for internet traffic, then you understand the metaphor — it can’t! And therein is the genius of my murder plan.

    Practically speaking, I’m still me. So every topic, no matter how serious or consequential, will be approached with the usual flippantly sardonic irreverence. Which means the majority of my 17 readers might not actually notice much of a change — save for an even more pronounced absence of words like “f/stop” and “focal length.” But just to make certain this titanic shift in direction doesn’t go completely unnoticed, I’ve designed a new site logo to replace the one I’ve used since 2002.

    I’m sure some of you have questions. So as the new ULTRAsomething’s first order of business, I’ve prepared a detailed, relevant and hopefully helpful FAQ.

    FAQ

    Q: Do any of these changes affect me at all?
    A: Yes. Your life will become demonstrably better in every possible way, but you will inevitably fail to connect your newfound happiness to ULTRAsomething — misattributing it to your new promotion; your new lover; or your recent lottery winnings.

    Q: I’m filthy rich and already own a Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita, Bugatti Veyron, and an Aston Martin Valkyrie. Rather than sullying my collection with something as pedestrian as a McLaren P1, I’d prefer to invest in ULTRAsomething, which I’m sure will give me far more enjoyment. How should I do this?
    A: You can donate small sums of cash through the site’s DONATE link — easily the ‘best kept’ secret in the 10 year history of this site. Sums of six-figures or more may be wired directly from your bank to mine. Contact me.

    Q: If I donate to ULTRAsomething, does that mean I have the right to request topics for articles?
    A: Yes. But your requests will have absolutely no bearing on what I choose to write or publish.

    Q: I couldn’t be bothered to actually read this article. Are you saying that ULTRAsomething will no longer be a photography blog?
    A: ULTRAsomething was never a photography blog. It was always an exercise in existentialism, which I linked clumsily to photography as a way to trick people into reading it. ULTRAsomething will continue to be an exercise in existentialism, minus the blatant photographic pandering. However, there will still be plenty of photos integrated into the site, and perhaps even the occasional article about those photos. I consider the language of photography to be every bit as important to this site as the language of words. It’s just that those words don’t need to be about photography.

    Q: I’m so glad you’ve decided not to pull the plug on ULTRAsomething come December 14th. Do you have any idea how much longer you’ll continue to publish it?
    A: No. But if all goes according to plan, pronounced reader apathy should effectively kill it on or about that same date.

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    There is absolutely no mystery to the photos accompanying this article — but there is a side note. Should you ever wish your life was blessed with more public consternation, scornful scrutiny, and contentious conversations with security personnel, I’ve found the solution: Stand on a corner 6″ from the edge of a building and take photographs of it with a 10mm lens. Your blessings will come.

    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.

  • Bones

    Bones

    Anyone yearn for the good old days when ULTRAsomething was a photography site? I know some of you do, because up in the menu bar is a link to this site’s Contact Form, which several folks have wielded precisely to express such sentiment. Most recently, a friend and longtime reader sent an email in which he mentioned “those dim and distant days when you threw your photography crowd a bone or two.”

    It got me thinking: Isn’t every article a bone? Isn’t every topic a festering feast of carrion, from which each and every photographer can pluck his or her own bone of choice and suckle at the marrow? Anyone who’s read ULTRAsomething for long enough to feel nostalgic for its past knows I don’t believe photography is about cameras, lenses or the mechanics of taking pictures. Photography is about life. It’s about how we experience our surroundings and how we filter them though our own unique cognitive maze. For me, photography is existentialism; not f-stops and DxO sensor ratings. To write about existentialism is to write about life, love, music, sociology, art, science, politics, religion, and even photography. All a reader needs to do is connect the dots.

    If I connect a few dots of my own, I’m lead to believe it’s not so much a bone the photography crowd seeks as it is a chocolate covered tiramisu with a crème brûlée filling, soaked in cognac and garnished with a generous scoop of designer ice cream. I get it. You all want another gear review.

    The problem with writing gear reviews is they require I actually possess something new. I don’t. And there are two reasons for this: One is that I can’t really afford to buy any new camera gear; and two is that I’m quite happy with the gear I have.

    Technically, there are a couple work-arounds to the affordability problem. The first is to buy really cheap stuff, which is exactly what I did for my last gear article — a review of the Lomography Fisheye One toy camera. That little box of Tupperware set me back a whopping $20. Canadian. Which makes it the least expensive product ever reviewed on ULTRAsomething. Of the 70 articles dedicated to discussing photography gear on this site, it ranks 69th in popularity. Its follow-up article, Folding Time, is but a few spots shy of claiming the dubious distinction of being the least read article in this site’s 10-year history. For comparison, the most expensive product I’ve ever reviewed is the Leica Monochrom (Type 246) — which also happens to be the most read article in this site’s history. So “cheap gear” is obviously not quite the decadent dessert bar at which my readers hope to engorge.

    Which brings me to the second possible workaround to the affordability problem: equipment loans. Most photography writers have only to ask manufacturers for review samples, and as fast as the UPS guy can pull up his brown shorts, there’s some fresh new loaner gear in the house. The problem with this solution is I seem to have written myself onto several company blacklists. Apparently, you must heap boundless praise upon a camera and use the phrase “game changer” a minimum of three times in the opening paragraph, or it’s no more cameras for you. The one exception has always been Leica — who are perfectly comfortable letting me write balanced and thoughtful reviews. Unfortunately, they seem to have a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” policy where I’m concerned. And since they haven’t called in awhile, that’s not really an option either.

    My second impediment to new gear ownership — satisfaction with my current gear — is actually a very good problem to have. Being happy with my current gear means I can spend more time constructively blaming myself for lousy photos, and less time blaming the cameras and lenses. That’s not to say I don’t find myself yearning for a Voigtlander 10mm f/5.6 M-mount lens or, most inexplicably, an Olympus M.Zuiko ED 300mm f/4. But neither of these are really anything more than daydreams…

    So if I’m going to daydream, why not dream big? Why not dream up a product that doesn’t exist? Why not dream of a product that, if it did exist, would inspire me to go earn some easy cash at that dicey medical research center on the outskirts of town?

    Dreaming up such a camera requires no creative enhancement of any kind; no Psyilocybin mushrooms; no need to brew a cup of DMT or drop the needle on some Jefferson Airplane. Nope. My fantasy camera is based on a camera that once existed in the film era — the Ricoh GR21.

    In 1996, Ricoh created the 28mm GR1 compact film camera. It was soon followed by the 28mm GR1s in 1997 and, five years later, the 28mm GR1v and 21mm GR21. In 2013, Ricoh introduced the first digital version of the old 28mm Ricoh GR1 film camera worthy of being called its ‘successor.’ I bought that camera the instant it hit the stores, and it’s been my constant companion ever since. It may not be my “best” camera, but it’s the camera I carry when I’m not on any particular photo mission — which is most of the time.

    We are now five years on from the release of the Ricoh GR, which (like the film series before it) has had but one minor refresh in the form of the GRII. If history tells us anything, it tells us that we’re due for a major update to the GR line. When I purchased the Ricoh GR, 28mm was my ‘standard’ focal length, as it had been for several years. In the decade prior to that I’d been a 35mm shooter, and in the decade before that, 50mm was my “thing.” Anyone quasi-adept at trend-line analysis could have predicted what happened next: I’ve gradually become a 21mm shooter.

    So naturally, the camera of my dreams is a Ricoh GR21D — a digital (and hopefully more reliable) version of the old GR21 film camera.

    Based on my status as the world’s most peculiar photography blogger, I fully expect Ricoh to green light this camera immediately. But before they do, I have a few more requests:

    1) Cameras need viewfinders. If I wanted to hold a camera at arm’s length and squint at an LCD, I’d use my iPhone. So please replace the series’ useless built-in flash with a pop-up optical viewfinder.

    2) We all know this is going to be a fairly expensive camera due to its relatively limited audience (me?). So go ahead and give that audience what it wants: a full-frame sensor with modern low light capabilities. If you do this, I won’t spend the next year grumbling about how good the camera could have been.

    3) Repeat after me: “monochrome.” This might be controversial, but since you’re making this camera for me, consider increasing the fidelity by leaving out the Bayer filter and those silly software demosaicing algorithms. Feel free to add a color version to the lineup if you think it’ll increase sales — I’ll be buying the monochrome.

    It’s not that far-fetched of a dream. There is historical precedent, and there’s nothing technology-wise that hasn’t already been done. The market for compacts has definitely taken a smart phone beating, but smart phones still don’t offer full frame sensors, optical viewfinders, impeccable wide angle optics, good ergonomics, or the fast handling speeds needed by certain types of photographers.

    This is a camera I want so badly that I’m now carting around a Frankenstein approximation of it — a Ricoh GR with a clunky, bulbous monstrosity of a 21mm adapter snapped to its front, and a wart of a 21mm viewfinder slotted into its top. Pocketable, it is not. Front heavy, it is. Plus it disconcertingly rattles when I carry it. And even with these bolt-on carbuncles, it’s still not a full-frame, low-light sensor. It’s also still burdened with color, which I automatically strip out when I import the raw files into Lightroom. But even though I never actually see the color images, I do still see the image degradation caused by using a camera with a Bayer filter.

    So how about it Ricoh? Isn’t it about time for a digital version of the GR21? You make it; I’ll find a way to buy it. Heck, I might even review it! But just to be clear, I still won’t use the “game changer” phrase.

    And this, my bone-loving friends, is how you write an article about photography gear without having to actually acquire any photography gear. One doesn’t blog for 10 years without learning a trick or two…

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    What we have here is the result of the whole ‘carrying around a camera when I’m not expecting to take any photos’ situation. These are all simply photo “notes” that I take to remind myself of this thing or that thing. Maybe something amused me. Maybe I just like the geometry; or the light; or… whatever. In this case, the photos document two different non-photo-oriented strolls through the Vancouver Art Gallery, along with a stop in a downtown store whose domed glass roof looked more (to me) like art hanging in a gallery than the art hanging in the gallery. The first trip yielded “Gallery: Bones” and “Gallery: Not Gallery,” which were taken with the faux GR21 monstrosity. The second trip yielded “Gallery: Porn,” “Gallery: Bombhead” and “Gallery: Antigravity Exhibit.” These were shot, instead, with the Leica Monochrom (Type 246) and a 21mm Super-Elmar-M f/3.4 lens — a combination I had just realized wasn’t any larger (just heavier) than the Frankenstein GR… which coincides with the precise point I started to dream of a pocketable digital GR21.

    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.

  • The Girlfriend Theorem

    The Girlfriend Theorem

    I’m so happy to live in the era of “prestige TV.” I doubt such shows as The Love Boat, Fantasy Island or The Six Million Dollar Man would have been nearly so effective at mitigating my mopiness. Really, how did people manage to survive divorce in the years before Netflix?

    Unfortunately, after working feverishly this past year to add ‘international crime series authority’ to my already overly-specialized resume, the “prestige show” queue is running dry. Which means I might soon need to face up to the whole dating problem.

    Truth is, it’s not like I haven’t been looking for a date. I have. It’s the finding part that I’m particularly bad at.

    Initially, I didn’t think landing a date would be overly difficult. I eat well, exercise, don’t drink, and have a BMI lower than 98% of North American men in my age group. I have all my hair – even if a quarter of those hairs are grey. I respect my partner’s autonomy, value her needs, and I do a reasonable job arranging the smoke and mirrors to give the illusion of intelligence.

    Yet here I am, over a year into the hunt, and my “find a date” success rate is humming along at a cool 0%. You’d think, with 7.6 billion people in the world, that my odds would be pretty good. So why am I now re-watching shows I’ve already seen? Sure, I enjoyed all 18 episodes of Jordskott, but do I really need to be watching it a second time?

    So I decided to sit down, crunch some numbers, and figure out why 7.6 billion people isn’t a large enough pool from which to draw.

    The first calculation was the easiest. There are two sexes. And in spite of the fact it outs me as “old fashioned,” I must admit I’m one of those men who likes my romantic entanglements to involve women. Exclusively women. So just like that, 51% of the world’s population disappears from my prospects pool simply because I’ve got a thing for twin X chromosomes. That leaves me with a pool of 3.72 billion.

    Obviously, I’m not going to date kids, teenagers, 20-somethings, septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians or centenarians. First, that would be creepy. Second, that would be really creepy. Ultimately, only about 30% of those 3.72 billion women are likely to fall into a category I’d consider “age appropriate.”

    Even worse, age-particular as I may be, I suspect many women would not define “age appropriate” quite as liberally as I — so in reality, that number likely diminishes to 15% of the female population. Which means my cornucopia of promise is down to only 558 million options.

    Roughly half the women in the world are single, but in my “age appropriate group,” that number probably sits at 25%. Tops. So my future girlfriend must come from a pool of 140 million.

    5% of the world speaks English as their first language. I’m guessing the number doubles if I include those for whom it’s a second language. Other than my aforementioned attributes, my wit is probably my best lure. And since that wit is wholly dependent on the English language, that means only about 10% of the fish will be biting in this particular sea — so I’m down to 14 million possible partners.

    But that’s a worldwide number. Geographical separation means I’ll never have any opportunity to meet the vast majority of these women. And while this website does have a rather extensive international reach, site stats inform me that reach is almost exclusively male. So any future date will likely come from the 0.05% of that English speaking population that actually resides somewhere within the Greater Vancouver Area. 0.05% of 14 million leaves me with a pool of 7,000 women.

    Now let’s be realistic. Coquitlam, Surrey, Delta, Richmond, Langley, North Vancouver and scores of other cities are all part of “the Greater Vancouver Region.” They’re also cities I haven’t been to in years. Heck, I doubt I’ve even been to 80% of the neighborhoods within Vancouver’s own city limits in the last decade. So just because there’s a pool of 7,000 potential partners in the Greater Vancouver Region doesn’t mean I’ll meet all 7,000 of them.

    Let’s say I go out of my way to crash every party, attend every event, join every Meetup group, and never go to the same grocery store twice. Would I even come in contact with 5% of the total pool? Probably not. But I’m trying to be optimistic, so I’m going to say 5% is possible if I’m willing to quit my job, give up making music and dedicate myself to becoming the world’s most social introvert. That leaves me with a pool of 350 women.

    But 350 is a raw total. I haven’t even started to account for the laws of chemistry and attraction. Quite frankly, I’m not likely to fall for just any English speaking, age appropriate female that I meet. Similar values, compatible interests, mutual respect, and that all important “spark” are necessary variables. So how should I weight these? I decided the answer lies with the poets, who for eons have told us that there’s just “one in a million” people to whom we will be attracted. The problem, of course, is that my pool size isn’t a million; it’s 350. Which means I’m 999,650 women short of the number I need to meet if I’m hoping for guaranteed success. This shortage leaves me with only a 1 in 2857 chance at romance.

    Of course attraction works both ways. Just because there’s a 1 in 2857 shot that my one-in-a-million girl lies within my meetable pool of potential mates, that doesn’t imply she’ll necessarily consider me to be her one-in-a-million. A staggering number of single men are wading through this very same pool, competing for the same women. And frankly, given that my current income is squarely commensurate with my lifelong dedication to music, I’m not sure that either my stellar BMI ranking nor my smoke & mirrors intelligence will spark many flames. And let’s be honest — mathematically calculating the probability of romantic involvement is a surefire recipe for diminishing that probability. So when I apply some basic statistics formulas and combine the odds that my one-in-a-million is in a pool of only 350 with the odds that she’ll see me as her one-in-a-million, I reach the final number:

    I have a 1 in 2.86 billion chance to find a girlfriend.

    That’s a rather staggering number. Particularly when you consider that the odds of winning Canada’s 6/49 lottery are only 1 in 14 million, while the odds of winning the more lucrative Lotto Max draw are only 1 in 28 million — a likelihood that’s actually 1000 times more probable than me not having to watch Jordskott several dozen more times before I die.

    So yesterday, rather than turning left into a cafe and plunking down $3 for an espresso and the hope of a serendipitous meeting, I turned right. Strolling into a small convenience store, I approached the counter, handed over that $3 to the cashier, and left gripping my very own lottery ticket. Sometimes, in life, you just gotta go with the better odds.

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

    I seriously considered publishing this article without any accompanying photos. This site has long jettisoned the notion that it needs to constrain itself to the topic of photography — co-jettisoning the bulk of its readership right along with it. So what’s the point of publishing photos with every article?

    Would Poe have been more poetic if he’d slipped a few murky daguerreotypes into The Conqueror Worm? Would Wilde have been wilder if The Picture of Dorian Gray contained actual pictures of Dorian Gray? And while William S. Burroughs was, indeed, a bit of a shutterbug, I didn’t see him feeling the need to sprinkle those snapshots throughout the texts of Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Nova Express or Junkie.

    Of course I’m not exactly Poe, Wilde or Burroughs — so maybe I shouldn’t be so anxious to replicate their rejection of illustrative photos. Besides, I find the allure of posting topic-specific visual puns far too intoxicating — and you can’t just go cold turkey on a jones like that.

    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.

  • The Ephemeralist

    The Ephemeralist

    “Label not, lest thee be labelled.” – The Book of Egor 19:73

    My favourite thing about us humans is our inexhaustible wealth of idiosyncrasies. So pervasive are these idiosyncrasies that I sometimes wonder: if idiosyncrasy is an intrinsically human trait, can we still call our idiosyncrasies idiosyncratic? However we label this characteristic, one thing remains certain: it’s an inspiring source of abstract fodder for the ULTRAsomething factory — endowments from a most benevolent benefactor.

    Speaking of labels, today’s essay deals with exactly that. Or rather, it deals with the paradox of labels, and how we Homo sapiens have a compulsive need to categorize and label everything: every thought; every idea; every belief; every creation, condition or culture. And yet, in spite of this, we very same humans are steadfastly resistant to accepting any label applied to ourselves.

    Labels make it easy to avoid precision. If I tell you, “I’ve been listening to a lot of minimalism this past year,” it’s nothing more than a literary wave of the hand. You still don’t know who I’ve been listening to. It could be La Monte Young, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Pauline Oliveros, Max Richter, Jo Kondo, or any of several hundred other composers — all of whom create music with little more in common than its ‘minimalist’ label. On a whim, I googled what one of the founding fathers of classical minimalism, Terry Riley, had to say about this label. The first thing to pop up was a 2014 interview conducted by Philip Oltermann, in which Riley stated, “Minimalism was never a word we used for what we did. It was a tag from the art world someone stuck to us later. My heart sinks when I get emails from music students saying they are writing a ‘minimalist piece.’ Once you become an ism, what you’re doing is dead.”

    Ask any artist how they feel about the heedless pigeonholing of their creative toils. Ask a writer how they like having their thoughts and ideas lazily summarized by a two-word generalization. Ask that ULTRAsomething guy what he thinks about being labelled a “street photographer.”

    Because there are 7.6 billion people who will happily affix a label to you, and only one person who wishes it removed, I maintain that it’s impossible for humans to be label-free. The only thing nature abhors more than a vacuum is an unlabelled human. So if we can’t shed our labels, why not create them ourselves? Society doesn’t really care what labels we wear, just that we’re cloaked in them. This is precisely why I’m always self-labelling — papering over whatever designation society stapled to my forehead with a fresh, more appropriate label of my own choosing.

    Self-labelling is more difficult than you might expect. Sure, inventing new labels is easy (because that’s what we humans do), but it remains our natural inclination to staunchly reject whatever label we think up. Our inner self comes face-to-face with the labelling paradox.

    I’ve struggled for years to label my photography, because if I don’t someone will inevitably drive by and stamp the word “street” on it. I’ve donned the guise of an “observational photographer,” a “figurative photographer,” and even just a “photographer.” Eventually, I felt inclined to abandon them all.

    I’ve faced similar problems musically. “Synth pop” was a label the music press attached to me early in my career — a label that sunk me like an anchor, given that “grunge rock” was the popular label of the day. Throughout my career, I’ve made numerous attempts to label my music, but none proved compelling enough to counteract whatever label the industry wanted to apply. Prior to my sabbatical, one record company rejected my submission, labelling it “instrumental crap.” At least it was a label more thoughtfully applied than “synth pop.”

    Perhaps the flaw in all my previous self-labelling attempts is that they’ve been too medium-specific. Calling my photography “observational” or “figurative” might indeed be more accurate than “street,” but it’s a photo-focused label. It doesn’t really apply to my music, or to me as a person. Wouldn’t the most appropriate label be the one that gets to the very heart of what I do and who I am, regardless of medium?

    So with that in mind, I plowed through a list of new label possibilities — dismissing each for some reason or another, until I eventually established an uneasy truce with one. I am, I decided, an ephemeralist.

    It pokes at the core of how I create, and what motivates me to do so. I am forever improvising. I have no interest in re-creating that which has already been created. When my record label asked me to go on tour to support an album in the early 1990’s, I rejected with the youthfully arrogant statement, “no one expects an artist to go on stage every night to re-create his latest painting. Why should I have to re-create an album?”

    When I make music, I record each track in a single take. If I didn’t play exactly what I intended, I don’t consider it a flawed performance. I don’t perform another take — instead, I merely accept the recording for what it is, and let its existence influence what happens when I record the next track. When I program a sound into a synthesizer, I never bother to save the program — I created that sound for a specific performance at a specific moment in time, and when that moment is gone, so too is the sound. It’s part of what I love about modular synthesizers. They are, by their very nature, ephemeral. The patch I create today will never again exist. Even if I plug dozens of cables into the same jacks and set several hundred knobs and sliders to the same positions, the sound will not be the same — the cumulative effect of their subtle positional differences would ultimately result in an entirely different sound. For years, music technology companies viewed this as a bad thing because it prevented RE-creation. But I have no desire to RE-create. Music, to me, is about expressing a feeling that I have right here, right now — not replicating a feeling I had previously.

    Photographically, my need is the same. It’s why I go hunting for photos on city streets. It’s why I look for fleeting moments, and why no one ever says “cheese” in my photos. It’s why I’ve spent the past decade writing essays rather than novels — essays enable me to address any and every transient thought without having to force them into some larger narrative. My interests indeed lie in the ephemeral.

    I do, however, agree with Terry Riley — any ism has the capacity to limit. So it’s important to remember that your ism is only a label and not a definition. And since you applied it to yourself, you’re free to interpret it as you wish — not as society dictates. You are not bound by your ism.

    For example, I’ve definitely applied the concept of ephemeralism a bit too aggressively lately. Ephemeralism, in fact, is the very reason I went over four months without recording any new music. Most nights, I’d belly up to the synthesizers at about 8:00pm and play straight through ’til 3:00am. Seven straight hours of real-time music creation — and not a drop of it recorded. I was fearful that if I recorded a performance, I might subconsciously let it influence, define or limit what I might otherwise play the next night — as if committing to an improvisation would define a genre to which future improvisations must conform. Eventually, I realized that my natural disposition to ephemeralism is exactly why this would not happen. Besides, there’s nothing about ephemeralism that implies the music shouldn’t be heard, just that it shouldn’t be reprised. To not record what I played was like pointing the camera at a subject, but not releasing the shutter. The moments are ephemeral, but if you don’t capture them, then you have no reason to exist. So I’m back to punching the record button every now and then.

    Some of you might think this whole obsession with self-labelling is silly. And it is. But as silly as it may be, labels change the way society views us. Our very names label us — implying personality traits, social status, and cultural designations that might not actually apply. This is why, back in my 20’s, I relabelled myself as “Egor.” My name is Gregory. Every time I met someone, I’d say, “Hi, my name is Gregory.” To which they would reply, “Nice to meet you, Greg.” I provided a label (Gregory), and they immediately relabelled me as “Greg.” Eventually, I decided that if people insisted on shortening my name to four letters, I should be the one to decide which four letters they used. I chose the middle four letters, and became “Egor.” I would say, “Hi, my name is Egor,” and people would say “Nice to meet you, Egor.” I regained control of my label. Even better, this new label functioned far better than the one applied by the general public. People remember “Egor.” They don’t remember “Greg.” People seek out the opinions of “Egor.” They don’t give a crap what “Greg” thinks.

    So this explains my obsession with labels, and why I believe anyone saddled with an ill-fitting tag should simply create their own. No one wants to hear what you’re not. They want to hear what you are. So be something of your own creation. Invent your own label. An idiosyncrasy? For sure. But then, we’re only human.

    ©2018 grEGORy simpson

    ABOUT THE PHOTOS & MUSIC:

    “Imprint”, the song included with this essay, is the first I’ve published in four months and the last vestige of my “improvising for an audience of none” phase.

    “Nov 27, 9:42am” is a photo of a reflective splotch seen on my bedroom door on November 27 at 9:42am. By 9:43am it was gone. I haven’t seen anything similar since.

    “Dec 4, 1:48m.” A musician takes his sousaphone for a stroll down Granville Street. Maybe this happens more frequently than I know, but I haven’t witnessed any sousaphonists before or since. So it’s ephemeral to me.

    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.