Open Mike (a day late): The Way Photographs Should Look
This is an awkward subject, and I m sure my attempts to verbalize it will be awkward and perhaps inept. So please forgive me if my words are insufficient. I m hoping I ll manage to communicate anyway that you ll know what I mean.
All photographs translate the visual world we see with our eyes into some form or other. All of these forms have characteristics. With experience, we learn what characteristics belong to which equipment, techniques, and tastes.
So my question is, do you have a favorite kind of way that you prefer photographs to look?
Two New: Adger Cowans and Meshell Ndegeocello
I love it that there are so many artists out there who are completely unknown to me. Always somebody new to discover. And you never know when or how you ll do so. Ultimately, I have Black History Month to thank for these two, one a photographer, the other a musician, both new to me.
The first is photographer
Adger Cowans, who is now 84. I found out about him through our friend Carl Weese, who sent me a link to a review of a photography show that appeared in
The Nation. The show, at the Whitney, features a little-known group of Black photographers from the 1960s and 70s called the Kamoinge Workshop.
Have a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Strategy
Apropos yesterday s post, Thomas Mc Cann said: Don t you have memory buttons where you can store presets? My Panasonic G9 has a get-out-of-jail-free button marked iA (Intelligent Auto) which I resort to when I get flustered.
I d say that s an important element of camera setup for anyone who either doesn t use their cameras every day or isn t naturally an electronics maven (some of you have an
aptitude, I know). Start by assuming that occasionally things will go wrong and you ll inadvertently and unintentionally set something on the camera without realizing what you ve done or how to undo it. Having and knowing a quick way to reset the camera to a familiar basic setup is a good failsafe. You might never need it, but you ll know what to do if (or, in my case, when) the need arises.