"Thoughts On Photography" Podcast

My leaning in photography podcasts has been towards those that deal with the creative, as opposed to the technical, aspects of the medium. As such, I regularly listen to, and have previously written about, Jeff Curto's Camera Position podcast, Brooks Jensen's Lenswork podcast, and Ibarionex Perello's The Candid Frame. I have as much of an interest in gear and Photoshop techniques as the next person, but prefer to get that type of information from books and websites, particularly since I usually listen to most of my podcasts while driving.

Frankly, I thought that I had already found all the photography related podcasts that would deliver the type of content in which was interested. I was wrong.....I found another. Recently, on The Candid Frame, Ibarionex Perello interviewed Paul Giguere, a photographer that I was not familiar with. During the interview, Paul mentioned his podcast entitled "Thoughts On Photography" and, based on the content of the interview, I thought it would be worth checking out. Well, 52 episodes later, I am glad I did.

So what is the theme of Paul's podcast? "Thoughts on Photography" is about 'living a photographic life'. It is about what happens when photography is important enough to you that it becomes a part of who you are.

I personally find it to be akin to the Lenswork podcast, with a bit of a utilitarian twist to it, along with a dash of The Candid Frame podcast tossed in for good measure. Let me give some broad examples of what I mean. While Lenswork might talk about the idea and importance of the photographic project, Thoughts on Photography might discuss the importance of developing a body of work along with specific ideas as to where and how one might go about having the project seen or published. While Lenswork might talk about photography books in general, Paul might recommend his top 10 books of the year and tell you why he found them interesting. Like The Candid Frame, he has recently also included a nice array of interviews with photographers who I was unfamiliar with. These interviews were interesting enough to motivate me to go to these photographers' websites and check out their work.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Lenswork, Camera Position, and Candid Frame podcasts. I am not at all implying that one podcast is in any way better than the other.....they are all different and, in my mind, complement each other quite nicely. But I do put Paul's podcast right up there with the others in terms of the quality of the topics and discussion, and that is something that I had not expected.

If photography is important to you, check out "Thoughts On Photography" (as well as the other podcasts I mentioned, if you are not already familiar with them). In addition to the link above, the podcast can also be subscribed to via iTunes. I think you will enjoy listening; I find it time exceedingly well spent!

Black And White

I have always admired black and white photography. The ability to convey feeling through only shades of gray is truly amazing. It has been some time since I did any black and white imaging, though I originally started that way with my home darkroom when I was in 9th grade.

One of the reasons that I have not done much black and white work has been the difficulties that have accompanied black and white inkjet printing over the years. However, these problems have clearly been decreasing rapidly. Lightroom and Photoshop CS4 have made converting color images to black and white much more intuitive. I have also been contemplating buying one of the newer printers that, based on all I have seen and read, are quite capable of producing beautiful monochrome prints.

With this in mind, I recently started 'playing' with some of my already processed color images to see what they would look like in black and white and how 'good' a conversion I could do. For an initial try, I rather like what I was able to produce, at least in terms of how they look on the computer monitor.

"Fluidity"
Copyright Howard Grill

"Siren's Song"
Copyright Howard Grill

"Dreamscapes #1"
Copyright Howard Grill

"Water Painting"
Copyright Howard Grill

Zone Plate II

Dreamscapes #2
Copyright Howard Grill

I would like to solicit some opinions on this one. I personally enjoy this image as much as the prior zone plate shot. However, when I have shown this to an admittedly small number of people they seem to strongly prefer the previous one. The interesting thing is the reason. They all seem to say that this one appears much more abstract and that it is more difficult to tell 'what it is a picture of'. I was a bit surprised as it seems pretty clear to me that it was two children at the water's edge.....but then again, I took it, so perhaps it is a bit more clear to me. What do folks that might be reading this think? Is it too abstract? Is it not clear what it is a picture of? Perhaps in some ways it doesn't really matter, but I would like to get a feel or understanding of what the viewer's experience is like when looking at images like these.

By the way, if anyone is interested in some resources that explain the technical aspects of zone plates, here and here are good places to start. However, I have to admit that at this point I haven't really tried to undertake a scientific understanding of the process in order to manipulate it....I have just been shooting to see what I get and trying to see what types of subjects seem to 'work' well from an artistic standpoint.

Zone Plate

Dreamscape #1
Copyright Howard Grill

In my last post entitled "Process", I wrote about using the LensBaby Optic Swap system with a Zone Plate and mentioned that I would post some photos. This image is the first that I have processed from a series I took about two weeks ago. Some people I have shown it to have found it 'interesting' and some have called it 'creepy'. Personally, I really like the ethereal feel.

I usually title my images, but this series is one that I feel should be left without titles so as not to influence the viewer's interpretation.

Process

Over the years there has been considerable debate on the issue of photographic process and the role it plays in artwork. Most recently this has been exemplified by the now old and very tired question “Is digital photography really photography?”. Several years back this question engendered serious debate….now it is hard to understand why, as nearly every photographer would answer “yes, it is….it is just that some fine art photographers choose to use film and others a digital sensor as their method of ‘capturing the light”.

I recently discovered the new LensBaby Composer with the “Optic Swap System” that allows one to swap different optical components in and out of the basic LensBaby format, which is basically a tilt/shift type of apparatus. One of the very neat swappable components is a ‘lens’ that lets you place a pinhole or zone plate on the camera instead of a glass or plastic lens. I have found experimenting with the zone plate to be quite enthralling.

However, I hesitate to post images made with it on forums that specialize in this sort of imaging. Why? The reason is that the tired debate about digital vs film does not yet seem to be dead when it comes to ‘alternative’ processes such as pinhole and zone plate imaging.

In the past I had written about such processes, which I had found quite intriguing (see here and scroll down to the pinhole posts). However, I have had limited opportunity to pursue pinhole photography because of limitations in time, and time is what is required to process film and scan negatives. However, with the advent of the LensBaby Optic Swap System I see an opportunity to explore this type of imaging. I am particularly intrigued in utilizing the zone plate, as it is something completely new to me, something very fresh.

Personally, I don’t think it should matter if the zone plate image was made on film or a digital sensor. But that’s just me, and a lot of people seem to disagree.