Seasonal GAS

Really hard to beat the infallibility of a 100K+ segment RGB light meter for night shooting.
Shot on the Nikon V1 with the 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 at 10mm, f/8.0 and 20" at ISO 100.

For the first time in a long while I've been manic over the idea of buying into a completely new camera system for reasons as yet inexplicable. I theorize that a lack of self-motivated outings to photograph for my sake instead of the sake of a client tied in with the already heavy seasonal SADs (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is driving my brain to consumerist notions that picking up a new camera in a new system and a new format will be a sort of savior to my rapidly rotting muse. Thinking historically, there seems to be a trend with the Winter months and the onset of seasonal GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome).

Specifically, and most recently, I'm thinking back to the Nikon V1, which I purchased on deep discount at Ritz Camera while the company was shuttering all of its storefronts. I remember developing a really difficult-to-navigate love/hate relationship with that camera, always regarding it as a direct competitor, and an inferior one at that, to the Olympus E-P3 that stood as my workhorse at the time. Both cameras were similar in size, my preferred kit for each was an assortment of prime lenses, and ultimately they were twin systems in which the V1 overlapped the E-P3 but with enough shortcomings to negate it in 90% of stuff-I'm-taking-with-me-to-shoot-with-tonight choices. But right now, I find myself fondly thinking back to that camera and rather wishing I still had it to wander the streets at night. For all it got wrong with nearly no buttons/dials/switches, it had solid autofocus at night and Nikon's RGB meters have always handled night exposures better than the rest. That is what my current creative panging cries for right now - a superior night photography experience.

Thus the current subject of my GAS is the Nikon D750, in great departure from my typical minimalist mindset when it comes to equipment. Next to my current workhorse Olympus E-M1, the D750 is a tank, heavy and clunky and lacking all sorts of design finesse despite being but a lowly plastic sensor housing. It goes without saying the imaging capabilities, ability to accurately acquire focus at night, and superior metering would set the tank apart from my E-M1. I've long been yearning for a prime lens kit system, and the Film Maker's package from Nikon comes with 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm f/1.8 lenses, plus spare batteries. But most importantly, and the real differentiator for me between any Olympus and Nikon camera matchup, is the difference in how files are toned. Olympus has always held some notoriety for very punchy and deeply saturated colors in their JPG output, and that ultimately translates to how their RAW files come out as well (not all RAWs are created equal). Nikon, on the other hand, takes more of a flat tone approach, which I honestly think is more of what I'm hunting for right now.

There is a quality to night images photographed on the Nikon V1 in which shadows and highlights would only really clip at my behest with sliders in Lightroom, whereas my Olympus cameras have always tended to clip blacks in night scenes, requiring precarious exposure compensation adjustments which inevitably clip highlights for not too terribly much recovery in the blacks of the frame. Everyone pre-bakes their RAW files just a little bit, and the Sony/Aptina sensors paired with Nikon's rendering engine provides such a beautiful base canvas to work on when in pursuit of a truly high-fidelity image. Olympus' approach, on the other hand, I always tended to prefer because it coaxes the direction of image processing with variations in the arguably punchier direction of its rendering of color and contrast. All of this is to say that an Olympus camera will always be superior for everyday shooting because it can help guide an aloof muse, whereas a Nikon camera's place, to me, seems much more in tune with those with a preconceived vision of what is to be photographed, providing a base palette that is malleable to go in the direction of the photographer's choosing. Right now, I want that flat base palette.

The rational side of me of course says "You don't need to buy a damn thing, just get off your ass and go photograph what you see". And I really can't argue with that logic, because as cliche as the saying is it really is the camera with you that is the best camera. In the meantime, however, I'm going to quietly crave my old Nikon roots.

Homage to E-P3

I'm ultimately late in mentioning this, but the Olympus E-P3 has been officially retired. Of all the things that could have done it in, the battery charger shorted (yes, I'm aware I could just get a replacement, but superficially forcing this camera into retirement is actually a weird sort of necessity for reasons of quirky mental allocations of value and function... basically I'm just weird).

Purchased in August of 2011, the Olympus E-P3 was as close as I could seem to get to a true spiritual successor to the Panasonic GF1 that died tragically in The Car Accident (caps for emphasis). I was new to Olympus menus, new to the famed Olympus JPG engine, and the sensor was arguably old hat by the time the E-P3 was released, but it appealed to me in both design and image quality from first snap.

One of the my first shots with the E-P3 on August 1, 2011.
Shot with the M. Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 RII at 35mm, 1/160" @ f/7.1 and ISO 200.

I built up an entire prime lens system around this camera body, always in love with the form factor of rangefinder styling. Not even a full year later in 2012, I started picking up my first paid photography work and kicked off my business with the E-P3, M. Zuiko 12mm f/2.0, and 45mm f/1.8 (eventually adding the 17mm f/1.8 which would become my favorite prime lens of all time). A simple, diminutive kit, which earned jeers from clients until they saw the photos and were left baffled.

The E-P3 had banged into more walls and railings than I can remember, dropped more times than fingers and toes can account for, and took a tumble off a moving train once. Never a problem for it to deal with a little abuse, it kept on shooting like nothing happened. Even after picking up the Olympus E-M1 and PRO M. Zuiko zoom lenses to build a (superficial) professional-looking front, the E-P3 still came with me in the car and was frequently my go-to for casual street shooting. Paired with the 45mm f/1.8 (itself showing a lot of wear and tear these days) I had a perfectly subtle combo which produced stellar images even 4 years later.

Olympus got a lot right with the E-P3. It was a perfect maturation of all design philosophies governing Micro Four Thirds at the time, marrying speedy menu operation with smart wheel-based controls and a touch screen that was actually useful (and totally not the gimmicky thing I thought it was until I actually used it). The sensor was older Panasonic tech, but Olympus squeezed every frothing drop of quality from it, and I still miss the use of OLEDs in the rear screen display (I'd often whine about images looking better on the back of my camera than on my computer monitor... that was an actual issue to me once upon a time... wow). With the VF-3 in the hot shoe, I discovered my love of waist-level viewfinder composition, and with the PENPAL bluetooth accessory expanded my horizons by editing and distributing images with my tablet in a completely new workflow paradigm. Mostly, though... I miss the size.

One of the last frames captured with the E-P3.
Shot with the M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8, 1/400" @ f/3.5 and ISO 200.

Word around the rumor mill is that Olympus plans on releasing a re-envisioning of the PEN line next year. And frankly I can't wait. For all its technological advances over the PENs, the E-M1 simply isn't the camera I want to be using all the time. Even sans vertical grip, there is a lost charm that I could probably get back with an E-P5, but I wouldn't want to hamstring my budget given how much I'm already anticipating this re-imagining, this... New PEN. Coupled with the rumors of those hyper-primes Olympus has patented... Oh yes, I am absolutely prepared to rebuild the prime lens kit.

So thank you, E-P3. Thank for your years of service, thank you for accepting my beatings with grace, and thank you for putting into perspective the kind of photographer I want to be seen as. Now please don't be jealous as I froth over your yet-unborn successor.

Mood Maintenance Methodology

My friend, Karen, shared a video with me maybe 2 years ago. A short by a photographer in which he dribbles on in a depressed monologue about the seasonal woes that are inevitably tied to Winter and the daylight ruin of turning clocks back an hour every November. It's actually a very good piece, and while perhaps not particularly inspiring in any overt, life changing way, it's reassuring in that the struggle of keeping creative drive up, keeping one's emotional health well managed, during the season is a shared hardship.

Personally, I remember Winter seasons when I'd simply retire the camera to a bag for months at a time and binge in excess on video games as my alternative escape. This was, of course, back before photography became a powerhouse hobby that largely governs major decisions and life choices for me, and today (and probably for the past 3-4 years) video games hold my attention about as well as a rattle captivates a baby. Lightroom and Photoshop are my video games now, and I'll sooner kill off evenings beating up old RAW files (and not publishing the results) than invest enough time to get past the starting area of Skyrim. But one can only batter the same RAW files for so long before they become redundant and boring, and once again evenings with nothing to do return to tax an already stir crazy brain.

So what is a creatively impassioned person to do when the daylight hours grow short and are otherwise robbed by the demands of a traditional work schedule?

I'll say right now, the working solution that has gotten me through the last 2 years with minimal cabin fever insanity seems so obvious I can't help but question my critical thinking skills. Thing is, it does require persistent dedication to an overall routine change, and it isn't something that is gently transitioned into but must happen immediately when the clocks turn back. Or, more accurately, it requires no routine change at all, but rather a willingness to ignore the arbitrary factor that humanity has agreed upon as global delusion, time. So maybe it would be more helpful to never turn your clocks back at all, because the most effective cure for seasonal downs I've yet found is simply getting up early.

I mean really early. Before the sun comes up early. Hell, before the sun comes up and with enough time to shower, eat breakfast, watch a dumb morning cartoon, drive somewhere 30 minutes away, and then hike another 15 minutes to the spot kind of early. Any successful photographer harps on those wee morning hours as this magical "other world", and their images are amazing and there is a good reason for it. I'm still not disciplined enough to pull off those 3AM mornings the Big Names manage, but holy crap, even waking up with enough time to spend an hour photographing the morning before driving into work is a thing of soul enriching magic.

Think about it. You're going to spend some block of probably more than 8 hours in a batcave of an office, and even if you rush to get in early, nobody else is on that schedule (forever governed by the arbitrary time on their clocks) so you'll still wind up staying later just to complete tasks as they gradually roll in. Coming into work early only ensures you're going to put in a few extra hours and, maybe, work a shorter Friday or something inconsequential (or if you're salaried, nothing at all). Because your peers are operating on a social clock and value a culture which eats at 7 or 8PM and drinks until 11PM and then maybe crashes out by midnight, the immediate perception is that we must conform to this late evening routine lest we relegate ourselves to the bin of social outcasts (see also: old people). And because of the overbearing influence of our peers, be they friends or coworkers, this change may not seem as easy as it actually is.

In the end we're all pretty depressed to walk out the office gates at 5PM and see that the sun dipped under the horizon 30 minutes ago with a mocking "See ya, bitches!". For the majority of people, that's the point of the social pressure to get together in the evenings, because human beings are generally social creatures and it only makes sense to surround oneself with friends during the long-cold-dark season. But for creative types, the ones who lose their minds when they slip into any dry spell in which new work is not produced nor projects pursued, that kind of socialization is about as effective in coping with the season as a nicotine patch for a pack-a-day smoker (pro tip: they're not super effective). The social atmosphere is a temporary distraction from the underlying stress of wanting to create new (and thoughtful) work. And the amazing thing is that's totally possible to do even during the Winter months, but it requires a shunning of the social circle band-aid, willingness to adopt some old man sleeping habits and the self-motivation to actually get out of bed at 4 or 5 in the morning. It's a lifestyle change, and like commitment to a healthy diet (not to be confused with fad dieting) making the choice and following through with it the first time is the hard part. After that, it's routine.

None of this is to say you aren't going to "slip", and considering that "slipping" generally just means "hanging out with your friends late one night" that's not so bad. Personally, I still allow myself such egregious betrayal of my lauded Winter Routine Change on weekends. In my struggle, the bulk of my depression came during the week, rolling into the office before the sun came up and leaving well after it had gone down. As it applies to me, my steadfast commitment is to be awake well before sunrise on weekday mornings, run through my usual morning routine, but still have a solid chunk of time during which I can go somewhere compelling and photograph the sunrise or the morning fog. That is the nuance of the coping mechanism as it applies to me. It will apply to everyone differently.

The larger point of this jabbering thought-bomb is that there is an option available, specifically as it relates to photographers, to find a new muse and keep the good work flowing instead of enduring 6 months of persistent distractions spoiled by the nagging realization that you aren't producing anything you really care about. I have some good friends in the photography world who frequently lament the coming 6 month Long Dark. They decried it months ago with forlorn words, like an inescapable apocalypse. But now it's upon us, upon them, and I don't want to see anyone struggle to keep motivated all because of a shift in social patterns brought on by antiquated time measurement rules.

So do me a favor; if you're struggling to keep positive while the nights are extra long, try going to bed just a little bit earlier, set an alarm to jostle you awake at 5AM, get dressed and eat something delicious, then drive somewhere with an amazing view of the horizon. You'll probably hate it at first, but I promise the gold creep over the lip of the Earth from where you're standing will make it the easiest day you've ever gone through.

Bonus points if you catch the deer in the morning fog.

What am I even doing anymore?

Couldn't have arrived in time to photograph this bit of clever street art at a better time of day.
Shot on the LG G4, 28mm, 1/600" @ f/1.8, ISO 50

I notice many of my favorite photographers and photographic projects have some sort of overarching story to tell. Their work isn't singular and disconnected as solitary pieces of exceptional work. Rather, it's a collection of above average to pretty-damn-good facilitating the narrative. Personally I'm trapped in this awkward inbetween stage of development in the craft wherein I can either specialize and go the way of the Fine Art Photographer (FAP, hehe) or chase the narrative and call it Lifestyle Photography. My muse vacillates wildly between the two depending on my mood at the time, more often than not leaning toward lifestyle work but holy crap is it hard to set aside the time to sort through photos and assemble a narrative. I don't want to upload sets to Flickr to share openly because they mean nothing without that underlying story and are thus merely above average photographs (maybe I'm too self critical, or perhaps taking my Flickr gallery too seriously).

Suppose the overarching point is I'd like to write more about the things I am doing, and I spend a lot of time lamenting my failure to share those stories. Normally I'm against permitting myself excuses, but in this case I'm going to squarely fault working constantly. All the time. 9 or 12 hour workdays in a claustrophobic office among people with whom I have nothing in common in an industry not in the slightest aligned with my personal ambitions. It's a pretty goddamn draining existence to deal with, and at all uncommon for me to be absolutely braindead by the time I get home with little interest in anything above eating dinner, playing a casual game or something equally less demanding of brainpower, and going to sleep. Motivation to do literally anything productive is just completely sapped because I've spent an entire day managing my own misery. I do this 5 days a week, and then when the weekend arrives I've saddled myself to the brim with photography work, which is infinitely more thrilling and motivating, and the struggle to make it a viable replacement for Misery Management is totally worth it, but it's also very time consuming and again I'm left with little bandwidth to express any narrative with the necessary agency to do it justice. Which is why pretty much every blog post you see from me is written while I'm at Misery Management with some down time between tasks.

And I've been up to some cool stuff lately. Took a trip to Philly, took some photos for the BGE Baltimore Before & After photo gallery and took a kid's portrait that wound up flaring up some weird emotions when casually posted to Reddit. I shot my friends on Halloween at a country bar with line dancing while they were dressed up like a donkey, a sock monkey, and Michael Vick's dog. Looking back on the last 3 weeks in such short and sweet terms reminds me that my life is awesome and totally worth sharing because there are lessons and discoveries to be made about life and people and relationships by recounting them. And damn does it seem greedy to be keeping that stuff to myself. Pretending there's some charm and appeal to being the mysterious photographer who wanders, aloof, in and out of life without any lasting imprint is bunk. I'm not mysteriously fading in and out, I'm simply working so much I don't have much time to actually exist as my own person instead of a means to someone else's end.

It's kind of early to be committing to New Year's resolutions (they're kind of dumb and arbitrary anyway...), but I suppose it's never too early to set a goal for myself to make the time to be me for more than scattered weekends at a time. I thought setting aside one weekend a month for myself was a great step forward, but in reality it's put into very clear context how much abuse I've been allowing myself to inflict upon... myself. I mean, for fuck's sake, who actually has to mark time off in a calendar to just be themselves.

High End Smartphone Photography with the LG G4

Apologies for the sudden and abrupt dry spell. It seems I am only ever able to maintain a steady pace of publishing for a few weeks at a time at best, inevitably followed by a months-long dry spell in which the focus to sit down and produce written content is elusive.

The last couple months have seen a series of fun outings strictly designed as Photography for Me endeavors. Finally agreeing with the assessment of my peers regarding a breakneck, burnout-conducive pace of Photography for Work, I've made it a point to reserve at least one weekend of every month for myself, and on those Me Weekends plans are usually set in motion to venture out with friends to some location a couple hours out and photograph something not at all local, typically out in the mountains of Virginia or Pennsylvania (because who am I kidding, my aesthetic is rooted in the Appalachians). This weekend, in fact, we're planning on spending a couple days up in Philadelphia, which is of course not Mountain Country but, for me, a place chock full of happy memories.

It should prove to be a great venue to apply focus on my current photographic tool fascinations with higher end smartphone cameras. The mobile phone based focus of modern photography culture isn't a vaguery to my musings on this blog in the past, but most recently I was forced to upgrade my cell phone due to a hardware failure and opted to go for the handset with the most compelling camera. Based on the numbers and ratings by various sites heavily focused on the directly quantifiable, you'd probably take that to mean the Samsung Galaxy S6 or iPhone 6S, but after handling several units at the store, from the ergonomics and intuitive control scheme perspective the LG G4 easily delivers what I find to be the most complete and well considered option, and with a camera well on par with the more quantifiable "winners" of the contest I find little to criticize.

I remember the days of flip phones with hardly even passable VGA cameras, so digging into the feature set of the G4's native camera software may finally be the thing that has me considering the smartphone as a reasonable and completely viable photographic tool. Manual settings (except for aperture, which is fixed at f/1.8 as a compromise of tiny lens design), up to 30 second exposures, really remarkable optical stabilization which works in tandem with the gyro sensor to assist in leveling images (which also begs for mention of a built-in level gauge), it seems very clear to me that this unit was designed by a photography enthusiast. The JPG engine renders clean 16 megapixel images which could easily stand the test of mid-size printing, but if that's not enough the native camera software even allows for the capture of .DNG RAW files, one of which is processed and shown as the banner image for this very blog.

JPG night shot of the Key Bridge in Baltimore, MD. Shot at ISO 50, 30" shutter speed as its affixed f/1.8 aperture. Barring pixel-level blue caused by tripod motion instigated by heavy winds that night, the quality of the image is great, with lots of latitude in the available .DNG to correct for the hard highlight blowout of the street lamps on the bridge and beyond.

And the RAW quality is great for what it is. Noisy even at native ISO 50, but plenty sharp, and with a surprising amount of latitude in shadows and highlights for manipulation. In practice, the biggest issue I've had with using the phone as a dedicated camera has been for long exposures on a tripod in which stability is hard to attain given the light weight of the phone. I've tried countering the issue with various weights hooked onto the center post of the tripod, but even the slightest breeze seems enough to trigger shot-blurring shake. But seriously, read that again - Shooting long exposures with a cell phone on a tripod in RAW, and my biggest complaint is that it doesn't weigh enough? If you're looking for an indicator of the esteem to which I hold the G4's camera and interface, there you go.

Realizing the potential of the phone's camera, I quickly went on the hunt for the most optimal tripod mount for my uses. Many people recommended the ShoulderPod line which does look like the best bang-for-the-buck option, but knowing my uses and having a MeFoto brand tripod at my disposal already, I went with MeFoto's SideKick360+ mount which both allows for use on other tripods but, more importantly, fits natively into the arca swiss plate vice employed by their tripod heads. A pricier option, yes, but well built and, personally, speed and convenience are abstracts for which I am willing to pay extra when it suits my workflow.

It seems extremely silly and maybe even overkill to mount one's smartphone to a tripod for the purpose of photography, but in practice it opens up a weird new world of possibilities by virtue of the fact that, the camera in question being the phone you have in your pocket, it is small, lightweight, easy to carry, and unassuming. Additionally, the ease and straightforward nature of any smartphone photography workflow makes it, frankly, enjoyable, with gorgeous and instant results that can compete very well with more cumbersome traditional workflows on dedicated cameras. At the very worst, it is the fun of Polaroid/Instax photography, but with more flexibility.

My latest fixation with the joy of a smartphone workflow has been in the production of time lapse shorts. I found myself experimenting with time lapse photography late in 2013 and through the duration of 2014 before I decided it wasn't going anywhere and sold off the kit I was using to produce it. I'd seen many time lapse shorts on Instagram and it had me curious to see what software was available for more power-user oriented time lapse capture, which quickly led me to LapseIt Pro. A cheap app at just $2, it features incredibly in-depth interval controls, options for locking white balance and exposure, a (currently beta) module which allows for manual camera settings as opposed to automatic adjustments, and most importantly a solid rendering engine able to export clips set to various frame rates in classic file formats like .MP4 but also new, smart compression formats like .H264. Producing time lapse was a fun and calming act of meditation to me while I practiced it before, and since rediscovering it in such a simplified form, it's returned to my daily routine as an artistic sort of mental collection.

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On the whole, delving into the maturation of smartphone photography has been the kind of back-to-basics pursuit I've been desperately needing to nurture creativity otherwise suffocated by the constraints of business practice (which is not to denigrate Photography as Business, more to demarcate the difference between the two). Cruising around running time lapse with my phone while simultaneously shooting stills with the PEN E-P3 has been ideal, however the E-P3 is soon to be retired given recent troubles which can be attributed to age and abuse of the camera. Still have some charge left on the battery, but once it's out, it's out. The next gear acquisition will inevitably be a replacement "fun time" camera, which has been something on my mind for some time now but most recently I believe my muse would be best soothed by some akin to the GM1 or GM5 paired with the lovely new Lumix 42.5mm f/1.7 (I have the 45mm f/1.8 from Olympus already, but the significantly improved close focus distance of the Lumix makes it extremely attractive given how I often try to use the 45mm).

A few more LG G4 time lapse captures are below for your enjoyment. Perhaps in time I will come to learn smartphone video editing software and manage to produce something with all these assorted clips. In the meantime I am happy to simply produce them!

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EDIT 10/19/2015: Apologies, but it did not dawn on me until some time after making this post live that the embedded time lapse videos were not consistently loading. I still can't seem to determine the reason for this, but in place of the video embeds I've made links directly to the .MP4 files available via direct links which should work just fine.

Why So Serious?

It dawned on me this evening that perhaps I am taking my creative life, my creative exploits, just a tad too seriously.

Thanks to the glorious web scouring power of Reddit (no seriously, thank you guys), I was made aware of a rather strongly worded (but absolutely appropriate) retrospective analysis of, in this case, the advertising industry, and its enormous tax on the person behind the creative spirit. "A Short Lesson in Perspective", a blog post written by an advertising industry staple, Linds Redding. I've read about his work before, mainly in third party articles (never knew he ran his own blog). I came across his name primarily due to the awkwardly similar situations we are (well... were, unfortunately) both in. Men with a time stamp on their lives. His (I reiterate, most unfortunately) came, whereas I'm still waiting on mine. I can't laud him enough for providing a bit of perspective before his passing.

Linds Redding came down with cancer, the kind of wildly metastasized, non-recoverable variant that locks one in a hospital for extended periods and rather permanently retracts one from the typical trappings of Western capitalism. Which is to say he spent extended periods of time outside his accepted working environment, thus permitting him perspective of life within and outside of the industry we creatives tend to regard as a holy grail of sorts. I believe he stated in his post that it only took 6 months (in the grand scheme, a remarkably short period of time) to acquire the re-balanced perspective necessary to write his post. I do recommend all those who fancy themselves artists married with business read it, it's quite sobering. And at the same time obvious, but as Mr. Redding states several times, something we're all quite good at deceiving ourselves into believing.

I don't have cancer. My situation is less predictable, which is not to insinuate I aim to upstage a creative powerhouse postmortem ("My death is worse than yours"), but simply provide a frame of reference. When premature death inevitably takes me, it will be sudden and unexpected, and I will not have the opportunity to experience a 6 month detachment from work-as-usual, life-as-usual. It will simply happen and I will fade without comment. There will be no time for me to develop perspective, which makes me all the more appreciative of the glimmers of introspection others provide in respect to their lives and the sense of impact with which they part this earth. And that is a most important thing to me, a necessity before a happy passing, to know that I've had impact. Some of Mr. Redding's remarks on the creative person's ego suddenly come to mind.

Since beginning my business in photography 3 year ago (nearly 4, now... wow), the sense of creative stagnation has gotten worse with time. I am photographing the same way every day, and what little time left for personal shooting is spoiled by nagging considerations of a style guide designed to minimize perceptible risk in the look and quality of images in a commercial sense. The longer I spend engaged in this specific style of shooting, the less willing I am privately comfortable with experimenting in my own personal artistic expression, to the point where, today, every photograph I take feels lessened by virtue of not being commercially viable. My time may be short when I eventually bleed out, at random, internally, and it bothers me to think that I might spend the last minute-and-a-half of life thinking "Damn, my photography really sucked the last 4 years".

The definitive guide to every photographer's life cycle. Not remarked are the points at which more rational people abandon the pursuit of photography entirely (most just after the "HDR Hole").

On the great timeline of a photographer's life cycle, I'm just past the "HDR Hole" and working my way back up in opinion of my work. Not remarked in the graph, however, is the impact of commercial focus in one's practice of the trade/skill/art. It really does function as a flat line, with less permission to experiment with technique leading to atrophied knowledge and thus an anemic quality of photograph. And Redding's description of the pace of creative work is absolutely accurate - my days are filled with work to the point of exhaustion, to the point where creative energy is a thing only remotely available through irresponsible alcoholism ("Jet Fuel", as I've come to call it), and like the "Morning After Test" a majority of those endeavors get passed over in the glazed eyes of a hangover and resigned to a digital graveyard. It makes money, it supports a lifestyle and a family, but so long as it standard there will always be a permanent glass ceiling to the acquisition of the most coveted goal of a creative, self actualization.

That all said, I'm not going to stop my pursuit of photography as a viable business and living. A key benefit of my situation is that, as a freelancer, I set my own schedule, I accept work on my own terms, and am not obligated by the terms of the contracts I sign to engage in the kind of competition Redding's life in advertising obligated him to wrangle. As he mentions, however, we creatives are a self motivated sort, and often saddle ourselves irrationally with lofty goals and obligations for the benefit of those who may or may not reward us for that uncommon drive (the "bean counters"). In my case, I've swallowed the concept of self sacrifice for market benefit hook, line, and sinker. And it needs to stop. I do not want to spend my last moments lamenting creative energies exhausted to sell a few homes, rent a few listings, and make wealthy people a little more wealthy. Because, in the end, they aren't likely to care.

I am taking more vacations now. Enslaved by the commanding reminders, notifications, and e-mails of my Google calendar, I've made it a point to specifically schedule time for myself in advance so as to not accidentally inundate myself with working shoots those specific days (admittedly I'm still perfecting that trick). Two weekends ago I forewent the standard barrage of a dozen or so shoots for a retreat into the Appalachians, and for the first time exercised knowledge and employed experimentation in the creation of astrophotography, a medium I've always admired but never taken the time to indulge. And it was a much needed recharge. So long as I keep committed to indulging such blind freedom from perceived obligation once a month, I think perhaps an otherwise unsustainable machine gun beat of work might actually be that crucially little bit more tenable.

Who says cell phones can't function as stellar cameras when you just don't care?

So I want to thank you, little as it may be worth at this point, Mr. Redding. I want to thank you for being brave enough to deny your own self deception, for being brave enough to look back at your life's body of work and calling it what it really is. Because not many people, at the end of the line, would ever be willing to admit the nihilist futility of a thing so much time was invested in. And in your bravery, I only wish you could know that you've introduced a little much needed perspective to the lives those artists who would otherwise continue headfirst into persistent self delusion. Very personally, I appreciate the reminder that self actualization will not come from overindulgence in the commercially safe, the commercially viable.

I think I might turn off the electronic level in my camera for the first time since buying it today.

Rebuttal to "How Mirrorless Cameras Could Save the Photo Industry (But Probably Won't)"

Perhaps less a rebuttal than more informed counterpoint. Michael Heath, a University of Pennsylvania IT product analyst, was frank enough to divulge early in his article regarding the decline of the camera industry that he is not a working, "professional" photographer (and I insist on using quotes because the definition of "professional" is an ambiguity at best in today's market). By contrast, I've kept my head buried in the bosom of the camera market nearly 15 years, watched it change and evolve in the thick of the "digital renaissance" of imaging, developing and growing among the first generation of photographers for whom digital is the most accessible medium (versus film). Many of Mr. Heath's points make perfect sense, but arguments of causality and correlation inspire a little pushback from somewhere deep in my gut.

I'll start first with possibly the only point outright refutable (which I believe to be an error of shortsightedness, not looking far enough back in the timeline of camera sales). Mr. Heath presents a chart that I've seen far too many times mirrored on various camera industry rumor sites (43Rumors, MirrorlessRumors, etc.). The chart portends to show declining interchangeable lens camera sales in regular cycles since 2012, which certainly is not incorrect (whee, double negatives).

DSLR vs Mirrorless Camera Sales from July 2012 to January 2015,
generated from CIPA aggregated data on www.personal-view.com.

This chart has always struck me as little more than superficial competition fuel for the inane DSLR vs Mirrorless camera feud plaguing the already brand-loyal tribalist realm of the ILC consumers. Cameras in these categories are not broadly competitive with the smartphones it is suggested they're up against. What is more telling is reaching back to when the original iPhone was released and analyzing the brutally fast disappearance of the compact camera market, the true competitor to the smartphone.

CIPA Camera Production aggregated data from 1933 to 2013,
presented by PetaPixel.com from Sven Skafisk.

It should be telling that the smartphone category of cameras extends well beyond the confines of this chart so as to make it at all reasonable to fit in a rectangular, web friendly box. By 2013, the smartphone portion of the digital camera market extends to nearly 1.3 billion units. In the 6 years it takes for the smartphone market to mature, for iPhones to find competitors in Android devices, for apps markets to present offerings like Instagram and Vine and trigger an intense focus on the quality of mobile phone video and photography, it takes only 3 years for the compact camera market to crash from a sales "high" of ~100 million units down to under 30 million, a more than 70% decline.

Now, by comparison, the DSLR and Mirrorless sales manage to remain fairly consistent through this period of smartphone growth. Among consumer digital imaging technologies, they are still relative new kids on the block, and among working professionals there will always be a market for these higher end bits of technology. However, being more working tools in nature, they are purpose built for the accomplishment of very specific goals, namely the intent to produce a higher-end image, and though the working man may certainly abuse his tools, they are nevertheless built to last (else he wouldn't buy/use them).

The camera Mr. Heath describes, the cheap, simple, unobtrusive brick that takes the deliberate thinking out of the equation in the capture of an image, already existed, and has already been overcome by the Darwinian consumer culture of the tech market. Perhaps Michael had never seen this data aggregated before, but it's perfectly clear (to me) that the rise of the smartphone and advent of digital image sharing on the mobile device clearly correlates with the blisteringly quick decline in compact camera sales. With smartphone cameras featuring up to 1" sensors, bright and fast f/2.4 lenses, brilliantly coded software tricks to expand the potential for mobile image capture, and the pertinence of a voraciously media consumptive culture that images be shared immediately, it's not surprising at all that $200 bricks with 1/2.3" sensors, sub par LCD screens, slow boot times, small batteries and no direct web connectivity fell into obscurity and vanished as internet culture evolved beyond their relevance.

Complexity of modern camera designs is certainly off-putting to the typical consumer, but that is because the typical consumer is no longer a viable target audience. That class of consumer has very clearly made its bed with the smartphone and unless camera manufacturers begin partnering with mobile phone manufacturers in maturing the designs of smartphone cameras I don't see camera manufacturers ever courting the typical consumer again. Which is to say they could possibly learn a lesson from DXO in their release of the DXO One, assuming they're even interested in trying to get that market share back.

Producers of Mirrorless ILCs are at an awkward sort of advantage in the current market, the same sort of awkward advantage enjoyed by their predecessors once upon a time. Canon and Nikon have long had firmly entrenched market popularity being the progenitors of autofocus in consumer cameras and the first big engines in the digital age of imaging. That popularity (and profitability) led them to conservative business practices for fear of upsetting their own stability in the established market, hence why compact digital cameras were allowed to atrophy so steadily with the smartphone's rise - they were unwilling to engage in necessary risk to retain market relevance.

Mirrorless camera makers have no such established market for the typical consumer. While more approachable with revolutionary designs and touch screens, they are by and large intended for the photography enthusiast, much like the entry level DSLR designs of Canon and Nikon. Having once placed enormous faith in the viability of the typical consumer market to carry them with profit-by-volume, Canon and Nikon remain unwilling to bend in established design trends for fear of destabilizing even their "prosumer" markets, and thus even that market will be allowed to atrophy and slowly whither. Mirrorless manufacturers have nowhere to go but up in their camera divisions, given that they never had any established market position prior to 2008 (just before compact camera sales took their nosedive). The freedom of no expectations or established trends allows for greater innovation in Mirrorless cameras, seen in unique processing engines, innovative shooting modes and integrated connectivity to the smartphone (just look at Olympus' E-M5 Mk. II and its art filters, story mode, high resolution shooting with IBIS and amazing WiFi app). Mirrorless may thrive just fine ignoring the typical consumer, maintaining focus on the consumer with a preconceived goal of learning photography as opposed to the guy who just wants to tap a screen, share on Facebook and be done.

My friend Rob's E-M5 Mk. II, alongside a Sarnac Pale Ale, because no self respecting
photographer fails to properly imbibe prior to shenanigans.

Mr. Heath is absolutely correct that "every mid to high-end camera... is, essentially, a complicated evolution of the film camera", but I maintain that is by intent and for the best of those cameras and their intended market. I don't suspect the typical consumer would want to use any sort of boxy touch screen device with some phallic optic extending uncomfortably forth from its body. The form factor alone simply does not align with the expectations of an imaging device set forth by the mobile phone market. It's simply not a war worth fighting, and that's okay. Capitalism may emphasize the value of vigorous competition, but in this situation I believe technology would benefit greater overall by the collaboration of camera manufacturers and mobile phone manufacturers. The availability of such powerhouse rendering engines such as EXSPEED or TRUEPIC integrated in a mobile phone, with tailor made optics and a great underlying sensor to match, would be fantastic.

That said, the camera market is indeed "...at the precipice of a permanent contraction", and personally I find that both true and inevitable for the likes of Canon and Nikon. Like the big banks of 2008, they're used to a lavish "lifestyle" funded by compact camera sales that they'll never get back, and their conservative approach with their higher end camera designs is losing them market share slowly and steadily among working professionals. For the likes of Olympus, Panasonic, hell, even Leica and Pentax, they never developed a crutch out of their compact cameras offerings, and were more than willing to cut that fat from their manufacturing budgets in the last couple years. They are more than sustainable with their appeal to the prosumer and higher end camera market, and at least in the case of Olympus, even profitable.

Sony I choose to abscond from in comment. They make the imaging sensors used by the majority of the market anyway, so making cameras for them is more or less masturbation.

A final note, I'd like to address the multitude of comments decrying the human species for became fat and lazy and incapable of wiping its own ass for sake of not wanting to learn how to use the toilet paper roll. Photography, as a social ecosystem, is remarkably dense and ultimately unaware of itself. It feels unfair, to me, to hold the Average Joe up to the same standards of curiosity and desire to figure things out, to "do it right", as I hold myself to (and as I've assessed, most photographers hold themselves to). It is no new thing that Mr. Average Joe wishes for doors to open for him, for the toilet to wipe his ass (I believe it's called a bidet), and that his camera will do the picture taking for him. Being denizens of this tight ecosystem of curious, DIY-minded people, we've come to expect such enthusiasm toward the exertion of effort as we find for ourselves, but that's simply not the case. This is not to say we are "better" people for our insistence on learning the intricate, underlying workings of how a machine operates and how to operate it most efficiently, simply different, because frankly not all things require such exhaustive study and often times we wind up reinventing the wheel (just because you did it differently does not mean your did it better).

On the whole, a good read from Mr. Heath, and I appreciate his vicarious motivations to get my mental gears a-turning!