# 6191-94 / narrow depth of field ~ is it now an effect?

from my single women series ~ µ4/3 camera / 20mm (40e) / @ f1.7 (embiggenable)

iPhone ~ Portrait setting (embiggenable)

iPhone ~ Portrait setting (embiggenable)

iPhone ~ Portrait setting (embiggenable)

BACK IN THE OLDEN DAYS OF PICTURE MAKING, aka: pre-digital, picture makers came by narrow depth-of-field “honestly” - camera+”fast” lens+shoot wide open = narrow depth-of-field. This technique was applied to many uses such as portraiture or drawing attention to a featured referent in a picture. But, in any case, it was derived from an intrinsic characteristic of the medium’s equipment.

In today’s digital picture making realm, narrow DOF is harder to come by given the typical smaller than so-called full-frame sensors + the laws / science of optics and image magnification (which I won’t get into here). For many picture makers who desire max DOF in their picture making , this a bonus.

As an example, in my picture making, wherein I am seeking out aesthetic form, I want every line, shape, texture, space, color, value, et al to be rendered with clarity and definition. That’s cuz every visual element with my imposed frame is an integral part of the aesthetic form I picture and hope to make perceivable to the viewers of my pictures.

For those who like narrow DOF, the options for obtaining it are limited and usually very expensive. Like, have you priced a (so-called) full-frame digital camera with a “fast “ high quality lens? While I like narrow DOF in some of my picture making, the expense versus small need-actually, it’s more like desire-does not justify the expensive. So….

….when the desire for narrow DOF strikes-I turn to my iPhone 13 Pro Max and its Portrait setting / feature. And, in case you haven/t noticed, over the past few months I have been using that setting-and,surprise for me, within a full-frame-much more than I ever imagined that I would. That’s cuz, best as I can tell at this point, I have been seduced by what my eye and sensibilities perceive as the soft, emotional warmth of pictures made with some significant degree of limited DOF. Which, again to my eye and sensibilities, stands in contrast to the hard, analytical, detached coolness of those pictures made with sharp definition and clarity from edge to edge.

ASIDE No. the iPhone Portrait setting does not accurately replicate the effect of the the old-timey film camera+fast lens combination. Yes. It can get confused, re: what to soften versus what to keep sharp, by small details. But, with some processing “corrections”, it does what I want it to do for my apparent narrow DOF picture making purposes. END OF ASIDE

All of the above written, I am ever so slightly conflicted with use of the iPhone Portrait setting. For the first time in my picture making life, I am using a filter to achieve a look / effect. OK, it'‘s not a filter. It is actually computational photography, Nevertheless, I can not help but feel that I am “cheating”, re: my sacred straight photography vow. Although, when picturing scenes / referents which are static, I do pre-select the aperture setting which creates the DOF look I am after and, 9 times out of 10, I print the file from that selection.

So, RATIONALIZATION ALERT, it’s kinda like straight photography, right?

# 5701-02 / single woman ~ unbearable weight of conjecture and deconstruction

(embiggenable) • µ4/3 - from my single women body of work

(embiggenable) • µ4/3 - from my single women body of work

I HAVE BEEN FOREVER ANNOYED BY ATTEMPTS to turn photographs into something they are not. A good example of such an attempt can be seen HERE in an entry, What the Photo Doesn't Show, on Leicaphilia. The title of the video in that entry, WHAT THIS PHOTO DOESN"T SHOW, rather concisely illuminates my point, re: to turn photographs into something they are not.

In any event, on to the photo in question:

“Young Farmers”, or, “Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance” ~ August Sander - c. 1914

August Sander, born in Westerwald, Germany, made many pictures of the rural people in that region. His intention was:

..."to speak the truth in all honesty about our age and the people of our age...[I] hate nothing more than sugary photographs with tricks, poses and effects."

Regarding his ideas about making pictures, he stated..

..."The person is mobile, ... then I freeze one moment in his movement, a mere five-hundredth of a second of that person's life-time. That's a very meager or small extract from a life."

Re: my point - a picture, any picture, is, as Sander states, a very meager or small extract-a mere five-hundredth of a second-from a life. Given that fact, iMo, the only thing one can "know" from a photo, knowledge wise, is that which is discerned from viewing the precision of the depicted referent in a photo.

Here's what I "know" from viewing this photo...depicted are 3 young men, dressed like dandies in an enviroment for which such dress seems to be rather incongruous. It's a cloudy day. The young men's expressions do not tell me much about what's going on inasmuch as they range from: tough guy, supreme confidence, and, huh? say what? Other than those things and the supposition-cuz it could be well executed reenactment-that it is a vintage photo, that is all I know.

But, here's the thing (for me). That's all I need to know cuz this photo just flat out draws me in. To my eye and sensibilities, it is both factual and yet somewhat strangely mysterious. It raises questions to which it provides no answers. And, from a purely visual POV, I find it to be delightfully interesting.

That is also all I need to know cuz I am not looking at this photo as a history / geography lesson. I am viewing it as a piece of art. I am not hoping to learn something. Rather, I want to feel something.

I want to be visually delighted / interested / intrigued. I want art to raise questions, not to give me answers (propaganda)...in the case of photography, why was a particular referent selected by the picture maker? In the case of any form of art, do feel as though I am touching, at the very least, a fragment of the nature of beauty?

All of that written, in most cases, I have not the slightest interest in what a photograph doesn't show. That is simply because a photograph's unique characteristic is to show us something with a fair amount of specificity, something that has been extracted from a mere small moment of life.

If making pictures is result of a picture maker being in the moment, then it make sense to me that, when viewing a picture, the viewer should be in the moment. That is, at that moment the only thing that matters is what is in the picture, not what isn't.

FYI, I have included in this entry some pictures from my rather substantial single women body of work. That is cuz I felt there is some relevance to the topic at hand inasmuch as I could not offer any information about the women-all strangers-depicted other than what can be viewed in the photographs.

The women were pictured-in public places-without any knowledge-before or after the fact-that they were or had been pictured. I made the picture and went on my merry way. Which, BTW, was a pretty niffty trick inasmuch as all the pictures were made with a 34mm (eqivalent) lens.

around the house / kitchen life / single women / # 3668-72 ~ luck is where you find it

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

(embiggenable) • iPhone

ACCORDING TO MIKE JOHNSTON ON T.O.P. I am "lucky indeed." That's cuz I have the answer to his riddle and cuz I can answer "yes" to the second question...

"What are you happiest making pictures of—what kind of pictures have the highest satisfaction/gratification quotient for you—and do you have access to it? If you know the answer to the first riddle and can say "yes" to the second question, you're lucky indeed."

Re: "the riddle" - What are you happiest making pictures of / what kinds of subject matter? My answer to that question is quite simple inasmuch as, when I first began making pictures, I ignored (without much effort) the standard advice for good picture making which goes along the line of, pick a referent-almost always meaning a person/people, place or thing-that you care about / are interested in and concentrate on making pictures thereof.

This "timeless" advice, iMconsideredo, unfortunately leads many / most to believe that the literal, depicted referent is what a picture is and should be about. Which tends to lead to the impoverished idea that, if a picture is to be considered as beautiful / interesting, it is only because the referent is beautiful / interesting. Which, in turn, leads to, as Johnston points out in the same entry, "motifs [that] are beginning to become almost standardized in photography, as so many people take the same picture over and over again.

Not wishing to belabor the preceding opinion / point, my answer to Johnston's riddle is simple .... my favorite kind of subject matter is any thing and every thing cuz my real picture making interest / subject is the rhythms, the melodies, the harmonies, to include the dissonances that can be seen and found just about everywhere regardless of the actual /literal depicted subject matter.

And, since my favorite "subject matter" can be found / seen just about everywhere, I have constant and seemingly endless "access" to it.

So, I guess I am a very lucky guy indeed.

single women # 38 / civilized ku # 5315-17 (triptych) ~ moving around the landscape

Ain’t airports fun ~ Washington,DC (embiggenable) • iPhone

Plattsburgh / Washington. DC / Pittsburgh ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

A busy week. Took my grandson, Hugo, to Pittsburgh, PA. for a day long visit to a prep school.

The visit included a practice skate with the school's top prep hockey team. Hugo put on enough of a show that the coach offered him a spot in the top team prep hockey program. Consequently, I may be traveling to Pittsburgh more frequently.

On the picture making front, I managed to make an addition to my single women body of work which you can view on my site front page via the WORK link above.

single women # 37 / the new snapshot # 161-62 ~ using the tool at hand

single woman / beer on draught ~ Kanata, ON, CA (embiggenable) • iPhone

a tree grows in Brooklyn ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

a sheet hangs in NYC ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

Left my "real" cameras in the car knowing I was going to have a beer and a sandwich at the rink before Hugo's hockey game.

So, when opportunity knocked, I used the iPhone camera module to make a picture for my single women body of work. If I don't tell anyone, even in print form, no one will be the wiser.

single women # 36 / the new snapshot # 155-56 ~ the impossible project

waitress ~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) µ4/3

ornament ~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) iPhone

60 degrees~ East Village, NYC (embiggenable) iPhone

Here's the thing about the free prints deal ...

... I can't help feeling that this deal is too good to be true. Except, it obviously is true at this point in time. My worry is that it will cease to be before I can get, say, a billion of my pictures printed.

Seriously though, I currently have approximately 8,000 finished pictures-processed, edited and saved-in my FINALS folder. Only about 25% have been seen on my blogs (the original blogspot blog, the Landscapist blog and the current Lifesquared blog). And it's just a guess but I would estimate that about 800-900 of my pictures have been printed - that number includes those pictures printed in books.

FYI, on this blog / site there are 33 sperate bodies of work on the HOME (aka WORK) page. Contained in those bodies of work are approximately 400-500 pictures. If I were to print only those pictures (a very dubious proposition), I would need to send off approximately 20 groups of 25 images each which requires a whole lot of prep work - each file needs to be re-sampled to the right file size and saved as a jpeg.

The long and short of it is simple. I will be spending a lot of time organizing, prepping and uploading picture files to PARABO.

single women # 35 / picture windows # 71 / art reflects # 32 ~ 6 days and nights

While in Mahattan during my recent 7 days travels, I discovered - at the Aperture Foundation gallery - a delightful little (5x8") book, Office Romance by Kathy Ryan. (see some pictures HERE)

No, it is not a romance novel but rather a collection of 154 iPhone pictures (4x4") which depict the same number of referents as seen by Kathy Ryan her place of work - the New York Times Building in MYC. According to Ryan ...

This began when I saw a bolt of light zigzag across the stairs one afternoon at The New York Times Magazine. I pulled out my iPhone and took a picture of it. Then I started seeing pictures all the time - incredible beauty and poetry in my office. It got my heart racing. When I see a certain kind of light out of the corner of my eye during the workday, or somebody us illuminated in an unsusaul way, I take a few pictures. It's a compulsion. Making pictures has become a call-and-response to the light and the day.

Inasmuch as I am a "call-and-response" (to quotidian referents / experiences) compulsive picture maker and a fan of small / precious pictures / photo books, Ryan's book gave me the idea of creating a small book (6x6" with 4x4" pictures) of my pictures which were made over the course of my recent 7-day travels. A diarist approach to presenting those pictures.

See the pictures.

Fyi, during the 6 day period I was able to add 1 single women, 2 picture windows and 3 art reflects pictures to their respective bodies of work. Although, the art reflects pictures will be the start of a sub-category within the art reflects body of work inasmuch as the manner in which the art is displayed through the gallery windows and the reflected architecture in those windows is decidedly different from that which is depicted in the current collection.