Author: James Vornov

Why walk.

Walking an hour a day. Rehabbing after my bike crash Memorial Day Weekend. 4 months out. Two monitors go off the bike outside.

When I make an image with my iPhone, I’ll do a quick edit of exposure, contrast and often apply one of the built in gray scale filters. Done.

But think about how much processing the iPhone has performed on that image even as it’s being captured. I get mid day landscapes with beautifully exposed blue skies and fluffy, contrasty clouds that I don’t think I could achieve with my camera kits. It’s all backend machine learning which has migrated in some measure to the RAW file processing in current products, but mostly in the form of presets.

So of course using presets is a great strategy for processing images from cameras, if it achieves the desired effect. One of the joys of film photography is that the film characteristics provide a very specific modification of the raw photon flux because of color sensitivity and contrast curves.

There a quite a few companies making good presets like Nik and Mastin Labs. This image was processed with DxO’s FilmPak which provides lots of really nice film presets. They are using sophisticated software to manipulate images to get very specific effects, ones that I don’t believe I could ever duplicate.

Not all photography need be casual in the way I’ve defined it. Expression in the darkroom is an art in itself and requires a base capture as a starting point. But the work of photographing- capturing images and developing technique- the eye for light, form and composition, can be impeded by the laborious process of computer post processing that not every image needs. Quality suited for purpose. It’s easy to get the global look of the image right. It’s the local changes- the dodging and burning we did in the dark room that provides the next step to draw in the viewer.

I think of an image like this as about 80% done. If I want to develop it further, I’d print a 4 x 6″ print and look at it from time to time until I understood what I might do to express a bit more of what it’s like to see a dumpster in New Orleans. But for now I like the composition and the blur of the landscape. Ideas that I hope I’ll bring to future image captures.

There’s an idea that desire for success is a trap since the end goal can never be achieved. No matter how much one acquires, there’s more. Once acquired any achievement or possession pales in comparison to the next object of desire.

If instead of focusing on the achievement, the gain, then the process itself can be fulfilling. Even without gaining mastery, doing the work day by day is giving, not taking from the world.

Here this casual photography is having a camera at the ready, seeing light and form, then using the direct visualization that mirrorless cameras allow, capturing a near final image in the moment. No optimal raw file capture for Photoshop processing, not just grabbing a shot,but the whole photographic process in the moment, just as easy as framing an iPhone image, with better control and image quality.

Once my iPhone could capture standard event and location images with adequate quality and more convenience than any of my cameras, I realized that my image making had to become more casual. Pushed by some photographers who were embracing this new approach to image making, I joined those who worked toward capturing the image as seen in the mirrorless camera and avoiding complex Photoshop based workflows.

Over the last few days, I’ve set myself the task of making some images that capture shadow and highlight values in camera, with few post processing adjustments in the Capture One iPad beta release. No layers or local adjustments, just visualized and realized in camera.

It seems I never tire of reading about tools that others use to pursue their creative endeavors. This very long, very detailed dive into Stephen Wolfram’s workflow is fascinating to me.

Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure—Stephen Wolfram Writings

Wolfram is just a couple of years younger than me, so we share the journey from starting out in the early days of computing (time sharing main frames, terminals, the early PC era through today’s ubiquitous computing environment). It’s interesting that he is just as set on filing and knowing where things are as I am. He also defaults back to paper and pen for ubiquitous capture. Saves all of his emails, filed away. He thinks in terms of projects and stores by project, knowing that he’ll return to previous work by exploring an old project.

Of course, Wolfram uses his own company’s system, the Wolfram Notebook which they’ve been continuously developing for decades now. I wish I had been a bit more consistent about staying with plain text over the years. I’ve got work filed away in multiple formats including Word, but also stuck in database programs like WordPress, Ulysses, and. Tinderbox. I can and have transferred work in and out, but those are the places I can’t quickly assess through a file system search or indexing with a tool like DEVONthink.

I like my current Markdown text workflow since it’s so tool agnostic. I’ve been playing a bit with EMacs over the last few weeks as a way to get even more text focused but with some of the organizational power I’ve enjoyed with tools like Tinderbox, but admittedly it’s hard to get it to play as nicely with the iPad and iPhone mobile environments the way the modern crop of markdown focused text editors like Drafts, IA Writer or 1Writer are optimized for.

In fact, as I’ve looked into Emacs, it’s clear to me that many of the features of these tools have been around for a long time in Emacs, just restricted in use to that traditional text based computing environment. As I’ve mentioned before, this exploration of tools and workflow is part of the tinkering. Always gets out of the way as work needs to get done.

I’m back from my first international travel in two years. A short trip to Lisbon. I had a few hours free each day I was there, so well over a hundred image captures came back with me.

I don’t take lots of images on these city walks. The camera provides way of looking more closely at how the light falls on the urban landscape. I look for little assemblages of objects that strike me as a still life or miniature landscape put together randomly from the usual components of the city scene. Usually it’s one capture, a quick look at the image for composition, exposure and focus and I move on. It’s a sketch, not a painting.

I’ve been working toward this style of casual photography for a few years now. It’s an expensive hobby, but its gratifying as self expression. My images are my own for myself and anyone who happens to see them here or on social media.

Oh, so many hobbies. This site, the workflows, cycling and fitness, philosophy and neuroscience. As I’ve become more busy with work, these outlets get squeezed for time, but gain in importance as an outlet. Writing takes a lot of energy, so I often find myself tinkering on other projects not so intellectually demanding.

The hobbies bring me into rich communities, again providing quick trips into bigger worlds. Networks of blog posts and discussions on Twitter and Reddit. Lately I’ve been tuning into the big world of Linux, window managers and Emacs which is a world full of tinkerers. Since it’s all just hobby for me, a nice place to relax. After all, there’s just one Wordle puzzle a day.

Color. The Leica M11. Travel. Winter light, morning in a Mediterranean city.

While I’ve been posting and archiving notes here, the photography side of things has taken a back seat. I’ve realized during the pandemic that my photographic practice is very much tied to travel. I’ll bring a camera on a trip and if I capture some good images, the enthusiasm to capture more stays with me, particularly if another trip is on the horizon. I just don’t leave my house for interesting areas as a matter of course these days, so if I’m going to capture images, it’s going to take a conscious effort on my part to bring a camera with me and get some images.

The Leica M10 Monochrom continues to be my tool of choice. The APO 35mm f2.0 Summicron has been my lens of choice, particularly with the accessory Visoflex electronic viewfinder mounted so that I can take advantage of the remarkable macro capabilities built into the lens, a first for an M lens, but made practicial for use by Live View or the EVF.

The next interation of the M, the M11 has been announced by Leica. At this point, I’m not motivated to upgrade to get a 50% bump in megapixel count or the bigger battery. I find the resolution of the M10 fine for now, even when I crop and I rarely run into battery issues when out shooting for most of a day when traveling. I do like the 20% lighter body of the black M11, but overall this may be an iteration that I skip.

I’m optimistic that into the spring I can get back into some shooting discipline and add more images here.