I’ve also been shooting with a lot of older cameras that you may not find in Amazon links but are great like
The Olympus Pen EP3
Panasonic G9 and Em5 MKIII micro four-thirds bodies.
Jason is using the Nikon Z9 if you want to go all in. But smaller bodies like the Guji XT5 can do almost anything.
Prefer used. Try an XT3 and grab a 50mm f2 or the 90mm for portraits that I use constantly. You’ll still have money left for a flask like the AD600 for big stiff or a small guy like the Godox TT350
Or some of those micro-four-thirds bodies. Gram a Leiva 15mm for street work and a 12-60 Leiva for all around. The lenses work on any Micro Four Thirds body new or old.
We looked at some pictorialism style and did some edits in last week’s workshop I did on creating pictorial photography.
Landscapes and even war-torn news images are being faked constantly and you don’t even know. Cameras make near-perfect photos and more so every day. But is that what a photo is all about?
Get Gavs Filmist 2 film presets even if you don’t shoot film. There’s a free pack you’ll love too.
I got bored of AI fast. I wanted natural images with practical effects that create an atmosphere. I’ve been studying icons like Stegliz and Hamilton as I work on a new editing pack inspired by their styles. These are not like Ai, they are not pretending to be something they are not.
A single small strobe lets me highlight the subject while keeping a strong shadow. A David Hamilton-style edit makes it soft and atmospheric. Studying not only the deep shadows but also the color hues of Alfred Stieglitz. I ended up using this range wings photo even though it was out of focus and editing for the pictorial emotion. You may love or hate it, but it makes you look more and tone.
This scan of Ektar 100 from my Mexico City work shows off the deep reds of this film and using the macro lens scan adapter gave me a better scan than the pro scans I had done previously.
A taco stand in Mexico. A real photograph taken on Portra 800 35mm Film and note editing.
On this weeks Pro Photography Podcast… Are photos even real anymore.?
On this Professional Photography Podcast we talk about photo news, the Cine Still scandal, and what Ai is doing to photography. The conflicts in the world are showing how deceptive it can be and new tech like Content Credentials is making systems to know what we are seeing.
Real photos from real people not from AI and we need to start using that. I shoot film and make things like Filmist film presets to keep a grounded focus on that.
Real photos tell a story of a person place or thing. They are the nouns of images and they matter. Ai-generated images will never be real photos. That does not mean they are not a real part of the market now. Only that we need to understand the difference.
The same scene taken on a Fuji X100 and edited with the Filmist Portra 800 preset. Still real.
Videos and other important things mentioned on this show.
Taken on film like this (Lokak Ultra 400), or on digital, it’s important to understand that the imperfections of real photos matter. Perfect is getting easy, real is getting hard.
