Your Resolution
What is Your Resolution? I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon (that is not entirely true) but what is it these days with this unholy quest for ever-higher resolution? It wasn’t too long ago when we were pretty happy about a 2000 ppi scanner, that is until the 4000 ppi scanners came out. But at least we were really happy with the 4000 scanners. With 4000 pixels per inch we could make big prints that looked great. Why would we ever want or need more? We didn’t until the 5000 ppi and the 8000 ppi scanners were introduced. Suddenly the 4000 ppi scanners we once loved were no good. After all, if 4000 ppi is good isn’t 5000 ppi better? This lust for more is not restricted to scanners, unfortunately, it has spread to everything and to all aspects of photography. If a 6 mega pixel camera is better than a 3 meg. camera isn’t an 8 meg. camera better than a 6? And if 8 meg. is really good than 12 or 16megs must really, really be good. Photographers are about as sensible as hound in heat. And let’s not even bring up 6 frames per second motor drives vs. 8 or 12fps or 11 auto focus points vs. 51. Here’s an idea: lets put so many auto focus points in our viewfinders that we spend all our time selecting points and in the process missing the shot. It will be like a Gameboy with a lens. Who cares about actually taking a picture? So as I understand this, the cameras and scanners (and printers, and memory cards, etc.) that we were so happy with a year ago (a day ago?) must actually have been inadequate and we just didn’t know it. It follows then that the gear we have now is also inadequate but we don’t want to think about it. Either we are all idiots or we are all ignorant. Take your pick. Here is what has happened: We have all been seduced into thinking that more megabytes and higher resolution are better and that somehow (apparently magically and without effort) if you have more and higher you are a better photographer. It doesn’t matter how the equipment is used, if you can get more pixels, dots and bytes you will be a better photographer. Spend your money, improve your photography. This is a wonderful world in which we live. But here is the question: You know what the resolution is of all your equipment but what is your resolution? What is the resolution of your technique, your craftsmanship? Can you get 4000 ppi out of your photography? Can you get 2000? If you have sloppy technique and awful craftsmanship no matter what the resolution of your digital gear is your pictures will be terrible. Let me repeat that. If your technique is sloppy and low res your pictures will be sloppy and awful. The resolution of your technique is far more important than the resolution of any of your equipment. Nothing contributes more to the outcome of your image. The problem is that you can’t buy technique (although coming to one of my workshops would certainly help!). Better technique can only be learned through practice and dedication. For you digital folks out there who don’t believe anything unless there are numbers involved, if your technique has a resolution of 1000 ppi it doesn’t matter what the resolutions of your gear are your images will have a resolution of 1000ppi. You all will recognize this as the much said but little appreciated: garbage in, garbage out. It doesn’t matter how much the garbage cost or how fine its resolution, it is still garbage. So what are the most common reasons for low personal resolution? 1. You spend $5000 for a camera and $50 for a tripod. You know you should use a tripod but you really don’t want to so you go out and buy the next to cheapest tripod you can find (you don’t want to be accused of being really cheap). Then you put your expensive camera on it. I see this every workshop I teach. For some reason photographers have a really hard time spending more than $100 for a tripod. They will spend $5000 for a camera they really don’t need but they won’t spend $400 for a sturdy tripod they do need. Go figure. Many of today’s cameras and lenses are getting bigger and heavier with every new model. This means you must have a very sturdy tripod to hold these new cameras. The ball of your ball head must be at least golf ball size. Cue ball size is even better (the bigger the ball the more surface area there is to grip on to, the steadier it is). If it is a particularly big camera or lens than your ball should be tennis ball size. Don’t bother arguing with me, you now I am right. Go out and get a good tripod and a good tripod head. Your pictures will thank you. 2. You rely on VR or IS technology when you shouldn’t. Image stabilization technology is never as sharp as using a tripod. Never. The only time you should use image stabilizing/vibration reduction technology is when it is not possible to use your tripod. Laziness, fatigue or my personal favorite, elaborate rationalization are not reasons to leave your tripod in your car. And no, you can’t shoot a sunrise or sunset handheld, at least not a good one. If you do manage to get your shutter speed high enough to justify hand holding chances are your depth of field is insufficient, the ISO is so high that there is grain every where, or the light is hideously contrasty. Even if you get a sharp picture hand holding your compositions will always suffer because you won’t be able to carefully consider all the important compositional elements of your picture. You’ll get a nice, sharp mediocre picture. Oh, joy! VR
Hugh
Hugh Bromley died early this morning in his sleep in the same room in his house that his wife, Joan, died 4 years ago. He was in his 96th year, as he would say, the last of the sixth generation of Bromley dairy farmers in Danby. All but four of his years he spent on the farm watching as the first gas and then electric lights came into the valley, the first car came up the road, the first voices were heard over a wire and the first tractor pulled a wagon up the hills. He fought with Patton in the Battle of the Bulge and was tough on nearly everyone else in Danby when he got home but I knew him as a sweet old man and I loved him dearly. Last fall Roger and Trish moved up the hill from their little house to the big, empty house where Hugh lived all by himself. This is the same house in which Hugh spent his childhood, brought his new wife after the war, raised a family and saw Joan pass away. Enid, Trish’s 82-year old mother, moved in to the house as well to be closer to the care from her daughter. Together, the four of them reanimated the old house and made it the warm old home it once was. Up until his last few days Hugh lived in his recliner in the extended kitchen- parlor in the front of the house. In January macular degeneration stole the last of his eyesight and by February arthritis had robbed him of his mobility. Unable to get to the barn just 200 feet away he spent all of his time in his recliner, sleeping, eating and listening to the farm go by. In May as the grass greened the meadows with the promise of hay, Hugh began to finally fade away as age and delirium savagely crept through his body. This last week I visited him often. He always remembered me and recognized my voice and would ask me what was happening on the farm. He knew it was getting on to be June and that it was time for Roger to finish up down at Hoppers and start planting corn in the road patch below the house. He also always remembered Abe, “you old scoundrel’ he would say, and would reach out his hand to find Abe’s head and give it a little scratch. I will miss my old friend, miss his stories, his twinkle in his eye, his steadfastness. Hugh, along with Roger, introduced me to this farm and in many ways to a new, richer life. His generosity and his acceptance of a ‘flatlander’ in his barn opened up my world and filled it with incredible joy and wonderment. I will forever be thankful for my time with him. It was an amazing gift and I am a much better person for knowing and loving him. And now I sit on the bale of hay Hugh would sit on in the milking barn as he waited for Roger to catch up and finish the milking. Piper, the barn cat, sits on my thigh just as he sat on Hugh’s and Abe lies quietly at my feet as he did with Hugh waiting for an old hand to reach down and stroke his head. Hugh would sit here and watch the old cows in front of him eat their silage. “This one can really eat, she’s been a real good cow. But she’s,” pointing to the one next to her with his ski pole cane, “a picky old bitch. Yes she is.” And then he would stand and push a scraper up the manger, one of the few chores he could still do in his barn. I’d often sit next to him and we would talk. Mostly he would talk and I would be happy to listen. More often than not it was the back-when stories he so loved to tell and I so loved to hear. I’d write as many of them down as I could but my ear missed more than it caught and I lament all the lost stories. My heart, though, never missed a thing and every year, sitting with Hugh, it grew fuller. Eventually Hugh would slowly stand and grab the scraper mumbling “yer a good ol gal” to his favorite cows as he shuffled down the manger. He has shuffled down his last manger now, off for good to rest on another bale of hay. I know he’s still watching the farm but now his sweet Joanie is by his side. After 60 years of being together I am sure the last four have been terribly lonely for both of them. Joan is probably humming a little French tune and Hugh is most certainly wearing his old brown rubber boots ready for the next chore. There are probably not many old cows up there in heaven for Hugh to talk to but there must be plenty of old tractors and acres of tall, grassy meadows. And certainly there are piles and piles of cow shit. Why else would a dairy farmer call it Heaven? I will miss you my friend. I will miss you a lot.