Before I go any further with my own ".02" on the premise of  "digital" photography. I initially, want to reiterate that there is "no" true significance to this whole write-up, and being just a mere practitioner of this pervasive art medium, and "what" I may try to communicate across, would only be pertinent to those who are currently on the same page as I am. I would only hope that I may also come across clear to those who are experiencing the same "overwhelmed" high curve to it all. Besides I've taken this long hiatus of  lifting a camera, and only went back to it all when my little girl was born (for those kodak moments), and more so seriously, after reading Susan Sontag's "On Photography" book  the very day hearing on the radio of her passing, as a tribute to one of america's prolific writers of the time. Reading "On Photography" is  recommended reading for any photographer, I should declare, because this was the read "enzyme" needed for me to get back in the art. There, however, isn't anything mentioned on photo technique or creativity in her book, only her own assessment (take) on the realm of photography. Her book (personally) satiates  the "null and void moments encountered" when photographing becomes "too mechanical."

It's common knowledge that ansel adams brought to the photographic (black and white) world the "zone system". the whole premise being, that there are nine zones where the middle of the nine would be your "gray" and at the extremes "1" being "pitch black" and "9" being "pure white".  I'm not going to touch on this in detail, because, for one, - I  have to admit, I  was barred from taking the "zone system" course back in photoschool days because I felt a need to (at the time) and finally dropped the pre-requisite – "large-format photography" due to being flustered with the "schiempflug principle" usage with the view camera, and never-ever went back for it again, thus, my history of  no "zone" for me. My "zone" theory and it's hard-knocks application, however, was always intuitive and second-nature, whenever I photograph those quick "down and dirty" shots. Bracketing exposures, always, is a  luxury for film and time, and that there can never be a way you can do a quick "5-up/5-down" when photographing people.

At any rate, Mr. Adams, stressed that it would be of good intuitive-practice to always –

"EXPOSE FOR THE SHADOWS AND DEVELOP FOR THE HIGHLIGHTS". What this simply means - is meter for the dark areas of what's being photographed, and later, developing  the film at  a specific development time and standard chemical temperature. This consequently  puts your "target-subject" in the photograph, right around the area of the tone curve of the film. theoretically, this technique should give you the whole gamut of the 9 zones. I know this whole "zone" concept strictly applies to black and white photography, but you can actually apply this concept to colour-film only in the exposure aspect of your shot, but you'll need the cooperation of your photofinishing expert at the kiosk or custom lab. Okay, so you've got slightly over-exposed negs because you've exposed/metered for the shadows, The trained technician would easily see that your processed negs are "dense" on the main-subject area, no fear, he's trained, on his end, to push whatever "density button" it takes for you to have decent photos with interesting color-saturation. my preference of shooting in black and white during my earlier years of photographing, was due to nothing, but the lame logic that  black and white has 9 zones and colour has 6, and I've always deemed  these colors to be-zones.

 the six being the basic colors of  Red, Green and Blue and it's complimentary colors of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. My immature sentiment, to which led to "why I love to shoot black and white?" is simple, that I like the idea of my own mind to give it's own interpretation on what colours could possibly be present in a b/w photograph. If you ask me now on my personal take, it would simply be that b/w photos are dramatic, timeless, gives that real feel of nostalgia (when viewed years later), and not to mention being of "archival permanence" (when properly fixed and washed). But in either case, a colour photo should equate as good as it's black and white counterpart. It's all in personal preference. That "each is own" sort of a thing. Color down the road, especially in digital photography, is very essential. Just like drilling yourself with a "multiplication table", I would always (back in the day) drill myself on colors. Example – what single color is produced when two primary colors of green and blue when they are equally mixed? Ans: Cyan. What is the primary color of "Cyan"? Ans: Red. And this can go on, with every photographic color on the wheel. Enough said.

I'm going to suspend my ".02" on film for now. But if you happened to be glued on this write-up and you just happen to enjoy it, stay tune for more. I guess I've made some form of valid introduction to the old school "exposing with film", that may have some direct relevance to this so-called digital-exposing technique called – ETTR, an acronym for "expose-to-the-right", (which I believe is every RAW shooters 'unrevealed' secret in using the camera's HISTOGRAM while shooting with a DSLR), that I would enjoy to cover on.

Ciao for now.

pretty much everywhere I go and encounter people with "film" cameras, It becomes an obsession to know – why "film" and not "digital"? and also behind the camera's history, like I'm in a time-warp and clueless with what's up in photography. I'd get simple responses like – "ah, this is just a hand-me down from my ol' man, and I'm taking photo (basic photography) down the road". This whole thing with "film" has gone sporadic with me, haunting me if I should just go back to shooting more film and, and to invest in a good film scanner. Film always's has it's plus(es), besides, I can never knock it – I, virtually, grew up with it, but on the other hand, I also love what "digital" can do. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Photo101 is nostalgia. Start playing the pat metheny album (with lyle mays) -"witchita falls…"

I felt a need to touch on this simple diagram on "exposure" and it's effect on the "film". Just by looking at it, it pretty much say's it all. I wouldn't get down to the nitty gritty of explaining it's use or benefit yet so bare with me. Oops, I noticed there's a "typo" on my little diagram, bottow row to the right. The number "-1.0" should be a "+1.0" instead. Back in the day when I supplemented my income by shooting "headshots", I would take my stuff to isgo lepejian b/w lab in burbank. Isgo, himself, was always generous in giving me a new T-shirt once the original got tattered. One day, I asked Isgo why the tonal quality and contrast on everyone else's stuff are impressive. He asked me what film I use, which I shot a lot of Kodak's T-max (at the time to simplify life by using just one kind of film), rated at ISO 100. my exposures were based on dead-centered meter reading of the reflectant light off of the subjects face.

Now, the film's reaction to my exposure, that is if it was standardly processed with correct chemical temperature and time, would put me (see diagram) on the straight-line region on the curve where "-0.0" on the x-axis would meet with DENSITY's "0.0". Theoretically, this is perfect exposure.

Isgo says – "expose your film with somewhere "half" to "2/3" more on your metered stop.  Back to the diagram, this puts me towards the end of the slope  where the Dmax (density maximum) is located. The physical appearance of the "subject" on the processed film should look a little dense. Now, when you print this slightly dense negative, it's going to require more light exposure, (let's say if you're using an enlarger), than normal. What this does, before the "subject in photo" reaches the point of being "on the money exposed", everything else  would appear skewed on the dark-side, because of that portion of the negative which is not dense enough to block the light reaching the photographic paper. This should clearly explain the dramatic contrast on headshots, of course, not to mention the powder padded on.

I just want to reiterate that this only applies to negative film and not "positive or slide" film. (slide film, is you pretty much would do the opposite, that is slightly under-expose your shots). if you've got no time to bracket with a film camera, nothing can go wrong if you slightly-over expose on your shots.

Ciao for now.

Next intended blog entry. Why I always shoot in RAW when shooting digitally and my desperate need for another GIG card, and taking my 16-bit .tiff files to Walgreens.

i'm back it's 9:27 pm and just had a little whiff of a rolled up "top" tobacco and a sip of trader joe's cafe pajaro espresso, that my friend dave b. (the modern-day kerouac) unloaded when he paid me a visit en route to san francisco from connecticut. hours prior during the afternoon, the wife,kid and myself ended up in pasadena after the doing the typical sunday routine of church service and brunch. btw, the bottleneck in chinatown was horrendous and having that tsingtao beer (just one bottle) to chase the dimsum down, instantly got me over the ordeal of finding parking. anyway,  while at the mall in pasadena and the tsingtao still in my bloodstream, i told my wife and kid that i will catch up with them later, wherever they were headed to, because i felt like exposing my leftover ilford xp2 film. the ambiance was perfect, a band was playing and the lighting was great. before i was able to load up my film, i noticed this photographer, with an identical canvas camera bag that i myself own and rarely use, and a camera on his shoulder with a strap that has "digital" marked on it. fyi, when you see this on someone's shoulder, there is a 90 percent chance that he's carrying a "canon".

chuck, fronting tommy bahama store, paseo de colorado.

"howdy, is that a "5D" you've got?" this question just ended up with us grabbing a patio spot and end up talking shop. speaking of shop-talk, i might as well touch on the reason why i shoot RAW instead of JPEG, as a preference, but in no assassination to the commonly used image-format file JPEG. firstly, (and not sounding like a separatist to those who shoot with those non-DSLR stealth cameras, because i myself shoot either and i currently own a non-pro dslr) these DSLR's are capable of simply capturing an image with their sensors (either CCD or CMOS or whatever) in 12-bit. let's suspend 12-bit in the air for a second. one of the very reason's why joe blow shoots in jpeg, is because he needs to e-mail or "ftp" an  image over to his friend , or let's say  an agency or newspaper he shoots for, easily with no data-size constraint. jpegs are so easy and fluid to handle with. any digital camera's sensor actually registers in RAW and does it's own internal (on-board) image compression automatically. the result - a compressed file called "jpeg" which stands for 'joint photographic experts group'. now, i can imagine this "agreement of standard" being of military origin. i'm thinking "joint chiefs of staff", kind of like your the technology on microsoft's window's nt being based from the deployment of the "star-wars" program back in the early 80's, or the whole idea of the internet being of "darpa" origin. where was i? so, we clearly know what JPEG is, now what about RAW? my first introduction to RAW was just a year ago when i purchased my first DSLR, primarily, a reason to get on the bandwagon of mainstream digital photography. so, i can humbly say, it took quite some time to get it down, reminiscent of studio and lab work at school ion-years ago and i just damn feel i'm getting close to the target. photography is a weird art, profession, science, communication tool, whatever you may call it, and mind you, it even gets weirder especially when camera makers are always pushing the envelope with their existing product-line, which consequently, begets another novelty line of cameras a short-while after, that the average consumer are suckered into purchasing. this whole digital thing could get convoluted that one just can't see the conspiracy. it is so amazing what simple numbers "1" and "0" can do. but it has it's downside and i sympathize those who are now starting photography at a price-inflated time. schucks, i missed my point again. back to RAW, typical with DSLR, you have the option to shoot compressed or raw, RAW stands for raw itself. some dslr's sensor picks up images in raw 12-bit (no more, no less just 12-bit). after the photo is taken, and you would want to get a glimpse on the camera's tiny lcd monitor, this is a image representation of an actual 8-bit jpeg image of what you've just captured/recorded but in raw 12-bit. the camera automatically converts over to 8-bit so you can vividly watch it on the camera's monitor. 8-bit through 12-bit is an actual quantum jump. now, so i've declared i decided to shoot all my images in RAW and not jpeg.

for now, i've got to jet. and get some zzz's tomorrow, being monday, back to the grind.

ciao for now

'just love the word "firstly", like "surely". anyway(s), firstly, i'd like to start this blog post with a greetings to everyone out there in "blogville" and also around the "globe". usage of the term "globe", gives me that sense of mass "air" transit. this, surely, entails a whole lot, like people flying out to their choice of vacation spots for R&R, or even maybe small parcels or heavy cargo being transported whether it being for commercial use or for whatever reason, maybe military, etc. [encountering brain fade, pause...] isn't it amazing with technology these days. i'm pretty much referring to the "net".  for a minute i felt so naive to the way things are purchased and shipped globally, (being flabbergasted over how things operate and how things are done) because of time, being of the essence, and how easy it is to track down where the stuff you are expecting to arrive at a specific time during the day.

Time, worktime, tidying up time, rearing-child time, devotion-time, play time, etc. do you ever constantly hear someone say "cut to the chase", well you definitely know, that, that person doesn't have the luxury in time to entertain a "preached proverbial adage", or just simply annoyed with the other party's "lisp". maybe unless it mainly pertains to Art (or even a good tip on what stock to buy or when is a good time to unload), because his time is very so Calculated. I remember a track from a "Cheech and Chong album" of a dude trying to peddle a watch to someone with car trouble and it goes something like this "hey man, you want to buy a watch, I know you ain't got a watch, 'cuz if you did, you'd know what TIME it is, and it ain't "no" time to be in this neighborhood!".  einstein quotes - "time is money". Yes siree, einstein, for someone like einstein, which soul out there cannot reject him. i think it's all in perception, though, i personally agree with him just because of the mere fact of  him being "Einstein" and his stature in the science world.  the "time is money"  thingy, thoroughly, correlates to the "reality" that some people "are" in denial, (of having difficulty sorting out their lives) because they realize that "calculated-time" is so-very important  in their current daily state and that they seem not to make it (wealth/success) happen for themselves.  fantasy (for the psyche), a common alternative to a pharmaceutical generic, is as healthy as the ubiquitous mantra "OM", (the former stretches as far and beyond (let's say- the horizon), and the latter, more concentrates and confines within the inner self) both being a cure for this pervasive common malaise.  playing ping (fantasy) - pong (meditation) with this concept fuels a natural form of creativity, devoid of any synthetic substance, you get my drift. Creativity, subsequently, emanates naturally, and manifests itself easily and plays a major role in productivity. Productivity on the other hand, should easily put you back on the essential track of  "subsistence" which should be significantly congruent to the proverbial "work to live", like "dude, you've got to work in order to put food on the table". All humans are innately destined to create and produce, (not to mention procreate) and anything of pecuniary value to them (as in material possessions), are the "by-products" of this form of subsistence-concept. The intentional massive accumulation of these "by-products" makes them more of purchasing agents of junk, than true connoisseurs of what "really" needs to be tasted in life.