Category: Photography

retrospective — late fall in michigan, 2011

whbeebe2 Comments



I wrote in my last post about traveling to Michigan in November 2011 for business. The last day I was there, before I headed back to the airport in Detroit to head home, I drove down a road at random just to see what I would find. It turned out that luck and the golden hour combined to show me some spectacular landscapes and plants along the way. Over nearly an hour, it was as if magic had descended on the land. I haven’t experienced anything quite like it before it since.

What makes this photographic sequence even more unique was the camera I used. In late 2009 I’d purchased an Olympus E-3 and a number of Digital Zuiko lenses, the 50mm macro, 12-60mm and 50-200mm zooms. The zooms were Zuiko Digital HG (High Grade) Four Thirds lenses, and they were some of the best I’ve ever owned and used. Only recently have I purchased a number of Micro Four Thirds PRO lenses that match their quality.

And then, in rapid succession, I picked up a pair of Olympus E-1 cameras, one used and heavily discounted, and one given to me by Kirk Tuck out in Austin, Texas.

The Zuiko Digital lenses were flawless on my E-3, but putting them on the E-1 unlocked the potential of that camera body and its sensor. You have to understand that the E-1 had a Kodak CCD sensor, which is as far as I’m concerned the closest anyone has ever come to making a digital sensor that matched film. In this case, Kodachrome slide film. But the E-1 sensor was only a 5MP sensor (never mind that it took until the mid-2010s before computer screens would match even that resolution), and as such it was maligned by much of the photographic press at the time. I still have an E-1, a copy given to me by Kirk Tuck. As far as I know it still works, but it’s been years since I pulled it out and tried it out. But I won’t give it up because I see it as a true Olympus innovation, and under the right circumstances it was extraordinary. But you had to work with it and understand it.

I lost my E-3 and one of my E-1s when I left them out in the backseat of my 2009 Prius in my driveway one night. I came home in a lot of pain and even though the car was locked, somebody came by and broke into my car and stole all my gear. I had my E-P2 and an E-PL2, with some micro Four Thirds lenses, but the creative core of my photography was gone. My insurance company made me whole with cash, but by 2012 Olympus was moving on into micro Four Thirds and so I slowly re-invested the money into that equipment. Even now I still feel that loss. What makes me mad is that Olympus gear was unique; whoever took it I’m sure had no idea what they had or how to use it. This wasn’t Nikon or Canon. Anyway…

What I’ve also discovered about my older work is it looks a whole lot better with today’s screens, especially on my iPhone, iPads, and MacBook Pros. I should try to find a good printing service and get some of them printed, but I’m afraid to, because I’m too afraid I’ll throw away good money and wind up being disappointed in the results. But I suppose I really should try. Starting with some of my E-1 photographs.

All photos taken with the Olympus E-1 and Zuiko Digital 2/50mm Macro.

retrospective — self portrait

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Originally titled “First Light” on Flickr, this was a self portrait I took with my brand new at the time Lumix 1.7/20mm in 2011. It was a combination birthday and Christmas gift, as my birthday is in December, so getting me a gift has always been complicated. The 20mm was lauded everywhere for its pancake size and overall image quality. It was a perfect fit on the front of my E-P2.

Now before you ask how I did it, keep in mind that the E-P2 had a rear screen that would not move out at all. To get some idea of framing, I looked for my reflection in the front element of the lens, and then took a number of shots just to be sure.

I like this photo because of the hint of sharpness right at the glasses frames. Additionally, there’s sharpness around the eye brows and the bridge of my nose, lips, and the front of my face in general. The in-focus elements are in that plane, with everything else falling out of focus, especially everything behind me. And just to make it nice to my eyes, the inside of the glasses frames at the bottom have a nice white reflection, giving an interesting contrast to the rest of the picture elements.

I went for the grunge look with Nik Silver Efex Pro 2, a plugin for Lightroom. The Silver Efex filter is Wet Rocks. The problem with doing this kind of extreme modification is the blocking up of the background and the sharp transitions between light and dark areas. The original color image shows a much lighter background with far more subtle transitions in the out-of-focus regions. And because everything is so dark, my portrait is almost lost in the mush. But the three-dimensional separation is still there, if somewhat diminished.

Overall the effect makes me look like I’ve been working in a coal mine. It seemed to fit my mood at the time, which was one of chronic pain in my left knee. I’d taken a business trip up to Michigan in November to visit General Dynamics Land Systems and climb around in the turret of an Abrams tank. Nothing happened while there, but as soon as I got home I wound up in the ORMC emergency room unable to walk. At this point in December I was in physical therapy, constant pain, and the start of a slide into depression it took a while for me to acknowledge. So, no, I wasn’t in a particularly happy mood.

So how do I look ten years later? I’ve lost even more hair, the jowls are more pronounced, but my mood is much better, in part because I had my left knee partially replaced in 2012 and I’ve since retired. Plus all the additional age-related damage that human beings are heir to.

I no longer have the 20mm, having given it to my youngest daughter along with my E-PL2 Olympus. It was replaced by the Olympus 1.8/17mm, the metal bodied 17mm, not to be confused with the 2.8/17mm pancake, which I also tend to miss from time to time. Such is life.