Category: Photography

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Photography Writing

Improving My Photography In 2021

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(Climbing Gear by Christopher Parsons)

I’ve spent a lot of personal time behind my cameras throughout 2021 and have taken a bunch of shots that I really like. At the same time, I’ve invested a lot of personal time learning more about the history of photography and how to accomplish things with my cameras. Below, in no particular order, is a list of the ways I worked to improve my photography in 2021.

Fuji Recipes

I started looking at different ‘recipes’ that I could use for my Fuji x100f, starting with those at Fuji X Weekly and some YouTube channels. I’ve since started playing around with my own black and white recipes to get a better sense of what works for making my own images. The goal in all of this is to create jpgs that are ‘done’ in body and require an absolute minimum amount of adjustment. It’s very much a work in progress, but I’ve gotten to the point that most of my photos only receive minor crops, as opposed to extensive edits in Darkroom.

Comfort in Street Photography

The first real memory I have of ‘doing’ street photography was being confronted by a bus driver after I took his photo. I was scared off of taking pictures of other people for years as a result.

Over the past year, however, I’ve gotten more comfortable by watching a lot of POV-style YouTube videos of how other street photographers go about making their images. I don’t have anyone else to go an shoot with, and learn from, so these videos have been essential to my learning process. In particular, I’ve learned a lot from watching and listening to Faizal Westcott, the folks over at Framelines, Joe Allan, Mattias Burling, and Samuel Lintaro Hopf.

Moreover, just seeing the photos that other photographers are making and how they move in the street has helped to validate that what I’m doing, when I go out, definitely fits within the broader genre of street photography.

Histories of Photography

In the latter three months of 2021 I spent an enormous amount of time watching videos from the Art of Photography, Tatiana Hopper, and a bit from Sean Tucker. The result is that I’m developing a better sense of what you can do with a camera as well as why certain images are iconic or meaningful.

Pocket Camera Investment

I really love my Fuji X100F and always have my iPhone 12 Pro in my pocket. Both are terrific cameras. However, I wanted something that was smaller than the Fuji and more tactile than the iPhone, and which I could always have in a jacket pocket.

To that end, in late 2021 I purchase a very lightly used Ricoh GR. While I haven’t used it enough to offer a full review of it I have taken a lot of photos with it that I really, really like. More than anything else I’m taking more photos since buying it because I always have a good, very tactile, camera with me wherever I go.

Getting Off Instagram

I’m not a particularly big fan of Instagram these days given Facebook’s unwillingness or inability to moderate its platform, as well as Instagram’s constant addition of advertisements and short video clips. So since October 2021 I’ve been posting my photos almost exclusively to Glass and (admittedly to a lesser extent) to this website.

Not only is the interface for posting to Glass a lot better than the one for Instagram (and Flickr, as well), the comments I get on my photos on Glass are better than anywhere else I’ve ever posted my images. Admittedly Glass still has some growing pains but I’m excited to see how it develops in the coming year.

Categories
Photography Writing

Glass in 2022

GlassProfile

I’ve been primarily posting my photos to Glass for about three months now. There have been several quality of life improvements1 but, on the whole, the app has been pretty true to its original DNA.

That’s been a bit frustrating for some folks, such as Matt Birchler. He notes that Glass seems to be populated by professional photographers and lacks the life and diversity that you can sometimes find on Instagram or other photography sites. I was particularly struck by his comment that, “I used to enjoy the feed because it was high quality stuff, but now I scroll and everyone is making photos that look like every else’s.”

I don’t discount that Matt’s experience has been seeing a lot of professionals making photos but have to admit that his experiences don’t really parallel my own. To be clear, the photographers that I follow are doing neat work and some are definitely serious amateurs or professionals. But perhaps because I’m more focused on street photography it’s rarely self-apparent to me that I’m following professionals versus amateurs, nor that everyone’s work looks the same.

That being said, I definitely do follow a lot fewer people on Glass. If I have a problem with the app it’s that discovering active photographers on the platform is difficult; a lot of people signed up for the trial period but aren’t regularly posting. The result is that it’s hard to develop an active stream of photos and a photographic community. At the same time, however, I don’t browse the Glass app like I would Instagram: I pop in once or twice a day, and try to set aside some time every day or three (or four…) to leave comments on others photographers’ work. I treat Glass more seriously than free photography applications, if only because I have (thus far) only has positive experiences with the other active photographers posting their work there.

The only other problem I have with Glass—annoyance really!—is that I think that you actually can see/display photographers’ profiles in a much more beautiful way on non-phone devices. The image for this post was a screen capture from my iPad which attractively lays out photos. In contrast, you just get a flat waterfall of images if you visit my profile in the Glass app itself. That’s a shame and hopefully something that is improved upon in 2022.

To date I’m happy with Glass and incredibly pleased to no longer posting my photos to a Facebook platform. I really hope that Glass’s developers are able to maintain the app going forward, which will almost certainly depend in part on building the community and enhancing discoverability.

I’m currently planning to continue posting my work to Glass regularly. Even if the service doesn’t explode (which would be fine for me, though probably not great for its long term survival!) I find that the comments that I receive are far more valuable than anything I tended to receive on Instagram or other social sites, and the actual process of posting is also a comparative breeze and joy. If you’re looking for a neat photography site to try out, I heartily recommend that you give Glass a shot!

  1. Specifically, the developers have added some photography categories and public profiles, as well as the ability to ‘appreciate’ photos and comments ↩︎
Categories
Links Photography

Medical Photography is Failing Patients With Darker Skin

Georgina Gonzalez, reporting for the Verge:

Most clinical photos are taken by well-intentioned doctors who haven’t been trained in the nuances of photographing patients of different races. There are fundamental differences in the physics of how light interacts with different skin tones that can make documenting conditions on skin of color more difficult, says Chrystye Sisson, associate professor and chair of the photographic science program at Rochester Institute of Technology, the only such program in the nation. 

Interactions between light, objects, and our eyes allow us to perceive color. For instance, a red object absorbs every wavelength of light except red, which it reflects back into our eyes. The more melanin there is in the skin, the more light it absorbs, and the less light it reflects back.

…

But standard photographic setups don’t account for those differences.

One of the things that I routinely experience shooting street photography in a multicultural city is just how screwy camera defaults treat individuals of different racial backgrounds. And I’ve yet to find a single default that captures darker skin accurately despite shooting for many years.

Categories
Photography

My Glass Public Profile

I’ve recently written about the concerns that I have about Instagram, and my assessment of whether I wanted to port my online photo sharing to either Flickr or Glass. As of October 27, Glass has enabled public profiles so non-members can view the work that photographers have published on the service. You can check mine out!

I…really like how the profiles look on Glass at the moment. I’ve been posting with some frequency (all black and whites, with a focus on street photography) and the flow model to capture and then post photographs has been simple and seamless.

I also really like the experience of having to comment on other photographs instead of ‘liking’ them. This engagement strategy means that when I interact with other photographers’ pieces I need to leave at least some kind of meaningful comment. As a result, I need to slow down and think a bit more about a photograph and I think that’s a good thing for me–the viewer–and the photographer who hopefully gets more meaningful (if less frequent) engagement.

I like Glass enough that I’ve ponied up for a one year subscription. The developers are pushing out significant quality of life updates to the application and, on the whole, it’s currently pretty fun to use and is clearly intended to be used by photographers, as well as other individuals who are interested in photography and just don’t want to deal with the grossness of Instagram and want something a little fresher than Flickr.

Based on my experiences thus far I’d heartily recommend that you check out the service, as well as my public profile!

Categories
Photo Essay Photography

Vacation Street Photography Challenge

(Come Towards the Light by Christopher Parsons)
(Come Towards the Light by Christopher Parsons)

This year I took a very late vacation while Toronto was returning to its new normal. I’ve been capturing the city throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and I wanted to focus in on how the streets felt.

During the pandemic we’ve all been attached to our devices, and our phones in particular, and thus decided to document the city through the lens of our ever-present screen: the smartphone. I exclusively shot with my iPhone 12 Pro using the Noir filter. This filter created a strong black and white contrast, with the effect of deepening shadows and blacks and lifting highlights and whites. I choose this, over a monotone, as I wanted to emphasize that while the city was waking up there were still stark divides between the lived experiences of the pandemic and a continuation of strong social distancing from one another.

(Between Frames by Christopher Parsons)
(Calm Decay by Christopher Parsons)
(Reflections by Christopher Parsons)
(The Guarded Groom by Christopher Parsons)

95% of my photos were captured using ProRaw with the exception of those where I wanted to utilize Apple’s long exposure functionality in the Photos application.

(Caught by Christopher Parsons)
(Just Passing by Christopher Parsons)

Darkroom Settings

In excess of the default Noir filter, I also created a secondary filter in Darkroom that adjusted what came off the iPhone just a bit to establish tones that were to my liking. My intent was to make the Noir that much punchier, while also trying to reduce a bit of the sharpness/clarity that I associate with Apple’s smartphone cameras. This adjustment reflected, I think, that digital communications themselves are often blurrier or more confused than our face-to-face interactions. Even that which seems clear, when communicated over digital systems, often carries with it a misrepresentation of meaning or intent.

Continue reading “Vacation Street Photography Challenge”
Categories
Photography

Over Flow by John Notten

(Over Flow 13 by Christopher Parsons)
(Over Flow 4 by Christopher Parsons​)

Climate change is a reality of contemporary life and is leading to increasingly numbers of weather-related catastrophes. One of the many threats now facing humanity is severe flooding. Such threats have been, and continue to be, driven by harmful and destructive human activities that impair and change the climate, and amplified by housing councils that permit developers to build homes on floodplains along with other development pressures linked to humans moving in increasing numbers into urban environments.

With the climate emergency in mind, Toronto artist John Notten has created a series of styrofoam installations that are presently located in Ontario Place. On the one side they show the image of an iceberg and the other show homes, vehicles, and other urban architecture. As discussed in the artist statement, the installation is intended to offer:

… an opportunity for the viewer to consider connections between this provocative material, the image of floating icebergs, and those of half-submerged iconic institutions.

(Over Flow 9 by Christopher Parsons​)
(Over Flow 7 by Christopher Parsons)

It was particularly special to have a pair of kayakers visit the exhibit at the same time that I was there. Their presence—and my effort to present them as blurred subjects—helps to give a sense that climate change affects all subjects—all people—and isn’t something that is linked to any one specific subject. In essence, I wanted to convey that all humans are threatened by climate change and that focusing on individuals and their efforts does not adequately appreciate the structural and collective drivers that endanger all life on Earth.

(Over Flow 13 by Christopher Parsons)

Over Flow will be in Ontario Place until October 31, 2021, and will then be moved to other locations in the spring of 2021.

All images were made using an iPhone 12 Pro and the Noir filter, and then slightly edited using a filter in Darkroom.

Categories
Aside Links Photography

2021.10.14

I’m liking the incremental update to the Photos application on iOS and iPadOS in the newest release of the operating systems. The ability to easily add titles to my photos and also access the EXIF metadata helps to maintain a (slightly) more organized photo library. Access to this information also makes it easier to share out photos straight from the Photos app, since I can copy the title of an image as part of sharing it.

However, I’m still missing the ability to create Smart Folders. Specifically I want to be able to have folders that are accessible, on iOS devices, and which sort based on the camera that took a given set of images. It’s been in MacOS for a very, very long time and it’s nuts that this kind of feature parity hasn’t been reached between operating systems.

I haven’t seen evidence that the newest version of iOS has fixed the green flare issue (which I first encountered when reviewing my iPhone 11 Pro). I know it was in an earlier beta but haven’t yet seen it implemented in a production release.

Categories
Photo Essay Photography

Canadian Genocide

(Built on Genocide 4 by Christopher Parsons)

The history of Canada is linked to settle colonialism and white supremacy. Only recently have elements of Canada come to truly think through what this means: Canada, and settler Canadians, owe their existence to the forceful removal of indigenous populations from their terrorities.

Toronto is currently hosting an art exhibit, “Built on Genocide.” It’s created by the indigenous artist, Jay Soule | CHIPPERWAR,1 and provides a visual record of the link between the deliberate decimation of the buffalo and its correlation with the genocide of indigenous populations. From the description of the exhibit:

Built on Genocide is a powerful visual record of the 19th-century buffalo genocide that accompanied John A. MacDonald’s colonial expansion west with the railroad. In the mid-19th century, an estimated 30 to 60 million buffalo roamed the prairies, by the late 1880s, fewer than 300 remained. As the buffalo were slaughtered and the prairie ecosystem decimated, Indigenous peoples were robbed of their foods, lands, and cultures. The buffalo genocide became a genocide of the people.

Working from archival records, Soule combines installation and paintings to connect the past with the present, demanding the uncomfortable acknowledgement that Canada is a nation built on genocide.

What follows are a series of photographs that I made while visiting the exhibit on October 13, 2021. All images were made using an iPhone 12 Pro using the ‘Noir’ filter in Apple Photos, and subsequently edited using a Darkroom App filter.

(Built on Genocide 1 by Christopher Parsons)
(Built on Genocide 2 by Christopher Parsons)
(Built on Genocide 3 by Christopher Parsons)
(Built on Genocide 4 by Christopher Parsons)
(Built on Genocide 5 by Christopher Parsons)

Canada is, and needs to be, going through a reckoning concerning its past. This process is challenging for settlers, both to appreciate their actual histories and to be made to account for how they arrived at their current life situations. There are, obviously, settlers who are in challenging life situations—som experience poverty and are otherwise disadvantaged in society—but their challenges routinely pale in comparison to what is sadly normal and typical in Canada’s indigenous societies. As just one example, while poverty is a real issue for some white and immigrant Canadians, few lack routine access to safe and clean drinking water. None have lacked access to safe and clean water for over 26 years but this is the lived reality of indigenous populations in Canada.

  1. Jay creates art under the name CHIPPEWAR, which represents the hostile relationship that Canada’s Indigenous peoples have with the government of the land they have resided in since their creation. CHIPPEWAR is also a reminder of the importance of the traditional warrior role that exists in Indigenous cultures across North America that survives into the present day. ↩︎

Categories
Photography Writing

Photography and Social Media

(Passer By by Christopher Parsons)

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(Passer By by Christopher Parsons)

Why do we want to share our photos online? What platforms are better or worse to use in sharing images? These are some of the questions I’ve been pondering for the past few weeks.

Backstory

About a month ago a colleague stated that she would be leaving Instagram given the nature of Facebook’s activities and the company’s seeming lack of remorse. Her decision has stuck with me and left me wondering whether I want to follow her lead.

I deleted my Facebook accounts some time ago, and have almost entirely migrated my community away from WhatsApp. But as an amateur photographer I’ve hesitated to leave an app that was, at least initially, designed with photographers in mind. I’ve used the application over the years to develop and improve my photographic abilities and so there’s an element of ‘sunk cost’ that has historically factored into my decision to stay or leave.

But Instagram isn’t really for photographers anymore. The app is increasingly stuffed with either videos or ads, and is meant to create a soft landing point for when/if Facebook truly pivots away from its main Facebook app.1 The company’s pivot makes it a lot easier to justify leaving the application though, at the same time, leaves me wondering what application or platform, if any, I want to move my photos over to.

The Competition(?)

Over the past week or two I’ve tried Flickr.2 While it’s the OG of photo sharing sites its mobile apps are just broken. I can’t create albums unless I use the web app. The sharing straight from the Apple Photos app is janky. I worry (for no good reason, really) about the cost for the professional version (do I even need that as an amateur?) as well as the annoyance of tagging photos in order to ‘find my tribe.’

It’s also not apparent to me how much community truly exists on Flickr: the whole platform seems a bit like a graveyard with only a small handful of active photographers still inhabiting the space.

I’m also trying Glass at the moment. It’s not perfect: search is non-existent, you can’t share your gallery of photos with non-Glass users at the moment, discovery is a bit rough, there’s no Web version, and it’s currently iPhone only. However, I do like that the app (and its creators) is focused on sharing images and that it has a clear monetization schema in the form of a yearly subscription. The company’s formal roadmap also indicates that some of these rough edges may be filed away in the coming months.

I also like that Glass doesn’t require me to develop a tagging system (that’s all done in the app using presets), let’s me share quickly and easily from the Photos app, looks modern, and has a relatively low yearly subscription cost. And, at least so far, most of the comments are better than on the other platforms, which I think is important to developing my own photography.

Finally, there’s my blog here! And while I like to host photo series here this site isn’t really designed as a photo blog first and foremost. Part of the problem is that WordPress continues to suck for posting media in my experience but, more substantively, this blog hosts a lot more text than images. I don’t foresee changing this focus anytime in the near or even distant future.

The Necessity of Photo Sharing?

It’s an entirely fair question to ask why even bother sharing photos with strangers. Why not just keep my images on my devices and engage in my own self-critique?

I do engage in such critique but I’ve personally learned more from putting my images into the public eye than I would just by keeping them on my own devices.3 Some of that is from comments but, also, it’s been based on what people have ‘liked’ or left emoji comments on. These kinds of signals have helped me better understand what is a better or less good photograph.

However, at this point I don’t think that likes and emojis are the source of my future photography development: I want actual feedback, even if it’s limited to just a sentence or so. I’m hoping that Glass might provide that kind of feedback though I guess only time will tell.

  1. For a good take on Facebook and why its functionally ‘over’ as a positive brand check out M.G. Siegler’s article, “Facebook is Too Big, Fail.” ↩︎
  2. This is my second time with Flickr, as I closed a very old account several years ago given that I just wasn’t using it. ↩︎
  3. If I’m entirely honest, I bet I’ve learned as much or more from reading photography teaching/course books, but that’s a different kind of learning entirely. ↩︎
Categories
Aside Links Photography

2021.8.12

If iOS 15 automatically removes the green lens flares that appear when shooting with the device at night that’d go a long way to improving the quality of night photos taken with the device (and fix one of the annoyances I raised in my reviews of the iPhone 11 Pro and 12 Pro). Here’s hoping that the software-side corrections make their way into the final release.

I do wonder, however, whether there are any photographers who have leaned into this lens flare and thus will have their photography negatively affected by Apple’s decision?