Last pictures from the LX3

Bedscape

Cityscape

Morning Light, Loch Fyne

EP1 1/250 8.0 200iso

EP1 First Picture

As Kevin Spacey would say I've gone 'camera chow' and traded the LX3 for the Olympus EP 1, equipped of course with the Panasonic 20mm lens - the ideal walkabout kit? Lunchtime picture on route to the sandwich shop.

1/40 5.6 640iso

(For those not keen on Kevin Spacey there is always this one)

Don McCullin

Britain's greatest living war photographer has a retrospective exhibition. Fittingly its at the Imperial War Museum in Manchester.

I remember seeing an exhibition of Don's many years ago when I was a teenager. Much of the exhibition space was dark, you turned a corner and suddenly you were face to face with this picture, enlarged about 8 feet high. Don McCullin is one of the reasons I wanted to be a photographer.

California

Irish Beach

Point Arena

Half Moon Bay

Mendicino

And so it continues.....

The stories of British Police and miscellaneous security harassing photographers goes on. Read this report on a man photographing a church

From a series of cartoons by Steve Bell in the Guardian.

'I'm a photographer not a terrorist' Facebook page and website

The Meaning of Objects 2

As the advert says: "Camera lenses recycled in South Australia by Craig Arnold. re:vision brings old school cameras into an entirely new focus". Why sell your old lens on eBay when you can break it into several parts and market them as designer jewellery. There may be more money in reworking old equipment than trying to sell photographs. But what statement are you making about yourself by wearing a Minolta lens aperture ring as a bracelet?

The Meaning of Objects

As much as we should avoid it, we can often get very involved with our equipment. It's not just a tool, it also says something about us as an individual. I've just bought an old Nikkormat FTn from the late 1960's. I have justified this as it was in a charity auction. But that's not why I bought it. The camera was used by a photo journalist in Vietnam and later in the liberation wars in Southern Africa. It has history attached to it.

One of my life choices was to be a photojournalist, but I chose another route. However, there is always the 'what if' in the back of my mind. Not that I pretend I would have gone off to war armed with a Nikon. However, the camera has a history and I feel good about having it an using it. It's a chrome model but has had the bright parts painted black which just gives extra allure. The lens is of a later vintage and Nikon geeks will spot this from the lens meter coupling (pigs nose not the original rabbit ears: the geeks will know!)

When Don McCullin, Britain's greatest living war photographer finally came home he settled down to making rather gloomy landscapes. I'm in Scotland in the winter so gloomy landscapes are all around. I'm off to make some of these in glorious black and white. Nice to be back with film for while.

On the subject of cameras defining who you are. A video of how a boy (canon) and girl (nikon) cannot be together because of their loyalty to competing brands. "Like Romeo and Juliet our families disagree". But as they say "lets look on the bright side at least we're not Pentax". Brands rule OK. Not to mention the erotic power of a lens.

Quote of the week

Asked what makes a great photographer, Eliot Erwitt pauses, then quotes a friend: “She said it was someone who shows you something you can’t see yourself.” Few artists can hope to do more. (from FT.com interview)

There are too many photographs from him for me to have a favourite, but if pushed I could go with this one.

Added note:

By coincidence a debate was going on in the onlinephotographer site at the same time I posted this picture about where Erwitt was standing when he took it. Is it him in the picture, was it staged, was he some kind of voyeur? It turns out the couple were friends of his. However, it does raise issues about boundaries; when does taking a photograph become unacceptable, does how the photograph is used move these boundaries, who decides? Are the boundaries of acceptability wider if its in the public interest, if it is art? Are not most photographs of people voyeuristic in some way?