Pick a Lens, Any Lens...

Lens selection is often an interesting topic. I've heard all kinds of suggestions on what's the best lens to use for a particular situation. The on line forums are choked with questions like "What's the best lens to use for portraits?" I find these questions a bit silly. Any "how-to" book or quick web search will tell you the most popular portrait lenses are in the range of 80mm to135mm.


(Kathy Cruver, Nikon F3, 180mm lens ©2002 David W. Sumner)

Really it's not an issue of the best or right lens. What's important is what will work within the context of your shooting style, what are you comfortable with? James Nachtwey has been quoted as saying he never uses anything longer than 50mm. HCB used a 50mm almost exclusively. Josef Koudelka for many years shot almost all his images with wide angle lenses. Then he quit using wide lenses all together. Then later he started using a panoramic camera for much of his work. So what's right?

When I was shooting color landscapes in the 1980's I rarely shot with anything other than my 20mm and 180mm lenses. Today I hardly ever take my 180mm out of the closet. Currently in my bag is a 20mm, 28mm, 55mm, 135mm, and two camera bodies. Now days 95% of my images are made with the 28mm lens. I'm not fond of zoom lenses, I'd rather step closer or move to one side looking for a good perspective. But that's what works for me and I've experimented for many years to get to this point.

(Artist, Dale Erickson, Nikon F4, 28mm lens ©2006 David W. Sumner)

In reality a nice portrait can be made with a 20mm lens or a 300mm lens. You just have to pay attention to what you're doing. When you're looking through the view finder, look critically. Move a little and keep looking. When it looks good, make the picture. Don't worry about right or wrong. The more you practice the more you become familiar with what makes a good portrait and will realize that a good portrait can be made with any focal length.

Remember Burma

Detained pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, appeared at her front gate yesterday as several hundred courageous monks marched through barricades blocking access to her home in Rangoon.

LINKS:

Chevron and Burma

Photos from a "brave Burmese living in Rangoon," who cannot be identified right now.


What's the Story with Burma?


BBC Profile of Burma


New York Times on Burma


Huffington Post on Burma


Independent Media looks at Burma


US Campaign for Burma


Human Rights Watch on Burma


Democracy Now on Burma


Amnesty International on Burma

Should We Even Care?

There is a lot of stencil art on the streets here in San Francisco. Much of it is original work, but some has obviously been appropriated.

Photo: ©2007 David W. Sumner

The stencil image (above) of Billie Holiday is on Van Ness Avenue. The original image is a photo by the late William Gottlieb.

Portrait of Billie Holiday: ©William Gottlieb

So what do we make of this? Is it an homage to Gottlieb? Is it fair use? Is it a copyright infringement? Given the context does it matter one way or another?

What if Gottlieb, were he alive, came along and signed his name to image on the sidewalk? Would that upset the person who made the stencil and painted the image on the concrete?

Should we even care?

Shoot First, Crop Later?

Usually I don't spend much time pondering such age old debates as to crop or not to crop. But there has been a lot of chatter lately about the purity of the in-camera crop and corruption of shooting first and cropping later.

I try try to do as much in-camera cropping as possible to make use of the full frame for every composition. But some times I'm faced with little time to get the shot: no time to get closer or switch lenses. My choice is always to get the shot regardless.

Recently I was roaming around the Ferry Building and I saw a girl feed some pigeons. The birds were actually sitting in her lap as she fed them. I stepped up and just as I was about to press the shutter release a little boy ran into the frame chasing the pigeons away. The boy's father reeled him and I backed off to let the pigeons come back. The girl was a little self conscious, but she went with it.

Most of the pigeons came back to be fed, but none hopped up onto the girls lap. I started closing in and heard the little boy running up behind me. I grabbed the shot from where I was, just before the pigeons took off once again. This all took place in less than a minute. I managed one frame. Not the image I had originally wanted, but a general depiction of the scene.

Here's the image I came away with. So where is the picture? Is it in there some where?

And here's my decision. There was no choice but to crop.

Now I'm not sure this image is even worth keeping, but it's a good example of need for and usefulness of cropping. Granted, I believe in the full frame and doing one's best to avoid cropping any image. But I also believe there are times when one must decide to shoot now and crop later or lose the shot.

Recent Work: Poetry Garden

The Poetry Garden
at 190 Fremont Street,
San Francisco.
Howard Street Entrance.








The fountain.















Sculpture and 190 Fremont.












Photos: ©2007 David W. Sumner

What We See

More and more I've come to realize that my intense study of anthropology and sociology in college, and the few years I worked as an archaeologist, have significantly influenced not only the way I look at the world, but what in the world I see.

It's interesting to contemplate what in our lives has shaped the way we look at our surroundings and exactly what we see.

Is this the last trace of a cave painting or simply the many layers of paint on the floor of the atrium in my house?
Twenty first century pictographs outside a pre-school in San Francisco. What of the pictographs across the South West? Are they the blackboard lessons of youth?

When we are looking are we really seeing?

Photos: ©2007 David W. Sumner

An Important Point, Often Overlooked

Mark Loundry's column in this month's issue of The Digital Journalist is worth a close read:

"The value of our work lies not in the fraction of a second that it takes to record an image but in the value that the client is getting from it. For example, a large-circulation magazine might charge more than $100,000 for a full-page ad. A smaller publication might charge only a fraction of that, but it's still going to be in the thousands of dollars. Since the magazine itself puts a high valuation on its pages, it makes sense that you do the same with the images that you're supplying to fill those pages."

No matter how much you charge for use rights, the publication that uses your image is always going to make more money from it than you are. So don't sell yourself short.
Photo: ©1991 David W. Sumner