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Term Limits
We need to fit the term “photographer” with a pair of concrete shoes, and drop it in the nearest lake. Photography is no longer a unique ability — but the numerous tasks we can accomplish with photography ARE still unique. And this uniqueness is how each of us, moving forward, must define ourselves.
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The Geometry of Night
The requirements for photographing at night versus day are as different as… well… as night and day. This article proposes that night photography is best approached not as a challenge of light, but as a challenge of subject.
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Market Speak
What is the market value of a photograph? For how long should someone view a photograph? What does the public want from photography? Why do men have nipples? This article, ULTRAsomething’s latest philosophical musing, provides no answers.
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Lobotomy, Please!
Self-doubt is a bottomless quagmire from which escape is difficult. We are who we are. If we’re lucky enough to have a vision and to feel passionately about it, then we owe it to ourselves to persevere. Slavishly adapting my style to match current trends would likely bring me more admirers, but then they wouldn’t…
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Hockey Gods
In its forty years of existence, the Vancouver Canucks hockey team has never won the Stanley Cup. Some of this city’s more pagan residents blame this on vengeful Hockey Gods. There might just be some merit to this belief…
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I Heart Rangefinders
I used to think concert photography went with SLR cameras like eggs went with ham. Well, cancel that side of ham and bring me some of that rangefinder bacon. In this article I confront life after SLRs, and schlep a couple of Leica rangefinder cameras to a Heart concert.
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More Poe than Van Gogh
The classification of photography as an “art” has done it a great disservice. Art demands that the viewer appreciate the technique behind it. It calls attention to its technical merits. A good photograph should never do this. Rather, it should just be. In 1951, Robert Frank told Life Magazine “When people look at my pictures…
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Don’t Feed the Ostrich
Short of taking photographs, few things excite a photographer more than planning their next major camera purchase. Conversely, short of a trip to the dentist, few things excite a photographer less than contemplating a backup camera strategy. But all it takes is a single camera failure to nullify the years of hard work you spent…
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Saving Souls
Can a camera save your soul? My second “f/Egor” column, which I write for Leica Camera, makes a case for this absurd supposition.
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The Accidental Blogger
Fresh from the whoduthunkit files comes another newflash — I am now a guest columnist for The Leica Blog, and will occasionally hack out… oops… I mean “craft” a column for them, which is called “f/Egor.” Since Leica saw fit to give me my own aperture stop, I reciprocated by granting them 30-day exclusive publication…
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Vacate Shun
I’m no etymologist, but personal experience would suggest that the word “vacation” derives from two sources — the words “vacate” and “shun.” Vacate means to leave, or to give up a place or position. Shun means to avoid or ignore something. For me, “vacation” means “to ignore my usual photographic inclinations, and to give up…
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Ruminations on a 50mm f/1.1 Nokton
I’m in love with the night. I enjoy the mysteries that lurk in the darkness, the enigmatic shapes, and the cavernous infinity of a bottomless shadow. In fact, I love the night so much that I want to photograph night itself — and not flood it with artificial daylight. As any photographer knows, the solution…
