it is here

I am of the view that we are into the best photo shooting days of this year. I must be a crazy man because rain is falling ever so often and then there is no sunlight for hours ... not that some of today's digital photographers need any natural light, because most of them seem to tote their artificial sunlight in a metal can powered from a battery. I do not wish to sound anything but pleasant, but I have a suspicion that many of these modern 'photographers' can't handle the Natural light. I could be wrong, but I see nothing that points me in any other direction but to draw this conclusion. I am also of the view that any light than can be obtained from a metal can powered by a battery, should be supplementary to the main light source, but that is my view, and I believe that I may have a few 'old' and 'older' photographers in my corner.

No direct sunlight is good for my photography, with the zone system thrown in. I guess zone system photography is still taught in photo school, but in this new digital world some things may be deemed as non essential and even obsolete, by some. I rather like the quality of light from this natural giant translucent "brolly" ... which is also hard to beat even when 'man made' to sizes that can fit them into a brolly carry case.. This soft natural light is ideal for shooting all Nature ... since they were created for each other. The best photos of people are taken in this soft but not shadow-less light, but it seems that some photographers are born to fantasize, or are unappreciative [or unknowing] of the laws of light and lighting, and seek to destroy naturalness and beauty, and replace them with something they conceived. A man's creativity is a man's creativity, end of story.

There is a notion that photography was created for "white" people. I don't know and I am not getting into that talk, nor do I really care, but from what I see, their skin tones are sometimes more difficult to reproduce in photos, compared to "black" people. I vaguely recall that the "colour test card" have two skin tone" patches, but sometimes this was not enough, so we applied the densitometer workarounds. Today it is a whole different game but the demand and requirements for high quality images still remain. I see a lot of 'good looking images', but fewer and fewer 'wow!!! looking images'. I get the feel that images are being infused with "sensuality" and that, I believe, limits the the development of the "wow!! creativity" factor in photographers brain, so they may not rise above that level of creativity. This topic and discussion is outside the scope of this blog.

The hurricane season and it's weather is here, and it can produce some exotic images of the animate and the inanimate, if photographers will allow their cameras outside the dry environment of their camera bags. The very nature of the weather brings out the unique and creative expression of our people, especially women, young and younger women, whether they are dressed for the photo shooting occasion or not. This is also the season which test photographers on many fronts, as dealing in and with the various aspects of the "wet weather" is at the extreme opposite end of the scale, to our accustomed "dry weather" operations. I would not go so far as to say that 'photographers' who leave their cameras at home, just because it is a little '"wet" on the outside ... "ain't ready yet" .. for that may be a bit too brash.