New cameras, new possibilities

I have been taking pictures since 1965 and have had many cameras along the way. I still have the beat up old Minolta 101 that I used in high school, and perhaps 75 yards of the black and white film negatives that it produced. When the digital camera revolution arrived and I jumped in with a 1.3 megapixel Olympus. Today we have 24 megapixels or better and there seems to be an arms race among DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera manufacturers like Nikon and Canon; they are adding more and better pixels. But there is a new technology that is gaining ground; mirrorless digital cameras. These have the advantage of not needing a mirror in them, which allows for a smaller and lighter camera with all of the image quality of the bigger and heavier DSLRs.

In the last year I have been experimenting with these new cameras and all of mine are made by Fuji. Wow! They are light and easy to carry and do many things that would have been thought to be miracles 40 years ago, but the bottom line is that the image quality is excellent. Back in the day (1974), my camera had two adjustments; shutter speed and aperture. Today one can alter any aspect of the four major contributors to the image; shutter speed, aperture, sensitivity to light and size and type of file created (.jpg or RAW). (The Photoshop wizards in the world like RAW files because they can make so many changes to them, but I have never learned to use Photoshop and don't really care.)

I am not ready to give up my big cameras, but I find this new world of mirrorless to be intriguing; it is the future. I took my Fujis to my local camera store and loaned them to the owner for a week. He liked them so much that he became a Fuji dealer. There is something to this mirrorless camera revolution. In the end, cameras are just tools and most of them can produce good images if the photographer does his or her part. But mirrorless cameras do it with much less size, weight and cost.

Here is a shot of my Intern building an insect trap. The shop was very dark, the light was flat and I had to push the Fuji pretty hard. I don't think my big cameras could have done any better.

Telephone Books: Time to Go

This photo was taken at the Post Office; telephone books delivered and immediately discarded by the recipients. I understand that some people still need telephone books, but why must we all get them? Why can't people who want a telephone book subscribe to one? The answers are obvious; the telephone book company sets its advertising rates according to the number of books distributed, whether or not people actually use them or leave them at the Post Office or throw them in the trash. One has to wonder whether the businesses that advertise in the telephone book have asked the sticky question of how many people actually use one. Businesses, and their fear of being unrepresented, are the only thing keeping telephone books afloat; note that the photo shows the yellow pages toward the front of the book and the personal listings toward the back. This is a reversal from years past.

Most people now use cell phones or computers to get information on local businesses. For me it is a quick question posed to Siri on an iPhone, or I can look up the business website. Each of these discarded books weighs on the order of 1.5 pounds and it would be interesting to know how many tons of paper are being wasted each year, even for my little town. Now extrapolate that for a nation of 315 million people, most of whom live in much larger cities with much heavier telephone books.

For many of us the value of a telephone book is less than the paper it is printed on. Telephone books are on their way out, and pretending they are more popular than they are won't extend their life for much longer. So perhaps it is time to push for a change in practice; those people who want a telephone book should be allowed to subscribe to one, but the rest of us should be spared this waste of resources.

Insulting the Electorate

Is it any wonder that we have no respect for politicians?

Election primary season is upon us here in West Texas, and the radio airwaves are filled with advertisements for Republican politicians. (Democrats are an endangered species, hence no advertisements.) Rather than a respectful discussion of issues, we are being subjected to a shameful display of lies and deceit wherein one politician is attempting to distort the record(s) or past actions of his opponent(s) in the hope that the voters will consider him (the liar) to be more conservative on the issues. One example is that our sitting Congressman has a radio advertisement that says his opponent has, for the last 16 years, contributed money to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (both of whom are, of course, stepchildren of Satan). This advertisement forced the opponent to create his own radio rebuttal wherein he explained that, as an eye surgeon, he contributed to his professional organization which in turn provided support for various political parties including the Democrats. The topics for which the misrepresentation is most vociferous are taxes, illegal immigration, Obama Care, Barack Obama and the Democrats.

The reality seems to be that any lie is fine so long as it helps win the primary. There is a whole industry that has been built up to create and perpetuate the lies, from the advertising agencies to the media outlets that profit from running the commercials. Yesterday I heard one rather ignorant host on one of the radio stations saying that these Republican candidates agree on 95% of the issues, so they need to draw sharp distinctions with their opponents on the 5% where they disagree, and the radio advertisements are acceptable because they do that. But they don't; they are lies and distortions that directly profit the station for which the commentator works. So I guess that is what makes it acceptable.

Truth is hard to find when candidates will twist their own records into what they think you want to hear and have no reservation about misrepresenting their opponents. So what is the truth? The only truth that I can see in any of this is that the politicians who would distort the record of their opponent(s) are showing their disrespect for the people of this state. Put the truth on the table, put your records on the table and let us decide. Lying to us is not only insulting, it shows us what you really think of us.

The Stereopticon Perspective

Let yourself go back in time to when land line telephones were uncommon and expensive, winter clothing was made of wool and cars were a luxury for many people. Airline travel was exclusively the domain of the very wealthy and most Americans had never traveled out of the state of their birth. Many households had only recently been electrified and connectivity meant fountain pen, paper and the U.S. Mail and the news of the world arrived by newspaper and/or vacuum tube radio in the living room. What most Americans knew of other nations of the world was what someone else told them through the media of the day.

One technology that peaked in this era was the Stereopticon. These devices first appeared in the 1860s and lasted until radio became common in most homes and people could go to movie theaters and watch newsreels of current events. The stereopticon was the way people saw images of the world around them and I have my Grandmother's stereopticon and five volumes of hundreds of image cards that show what the world was like from before WWI to the late 1930s. Each image card contains two photos, the horizontal axis of which is slightly offset so that, when viewed through two lenses, a stereo (or depth) effect is produced. The image is rendered as 3-dimensional, much like a modern 3-D movie. Photos are shown below.

For the U.S.A. there are images of African Americans picking cotton in Mississippi, early mechanized farm equipment, the new Empire State Building in New York and the most modern factories, trains and airplanes; modernization and progress seem to be the theme. The cards from Germany show the classic Oktoberfest scenes and famous churches, but also a rising Nazi Germany; Swastika-clad Zeppelins and monoplanes. The rest of Europe is represented as mostly the places American tourists would visit if they ever got to Europe. The world outside of the U.S. and Europe is mostly depicted as peasants working the fields or factories, and these are interspaced with classic buildings from the country in question. (See photo 3 below.) Japan is represented by cards that show women picking tea leaves, a group of farmers planting rice, and the most technology shown in any photo is of a stall full of Japanese sandal-style shoes. The subtle message was that the U.S.A. and Europe were better; more advanced and more civilized. But of course we were, and it was nice to see it affirmed.

This was the way it was, or at least the way the American consumer at the time was led to think it was. The thing that strikes me about the photos for the stereopticon is how easy it would be to believe that the "other" people in the world were as shown; I don't believe they were, but I believe the company that sold the photo cards gave U.S. citizens the view of other nations that their customers expected to see.

I can understand how when WWII broke out it was easy for us to be convinced to think of our adversaries as "Huns and Japs"; we had really only been exposed to media that presented things as the audience wished them to be ("we are better") or as the media source wished to present them ("all of them are our enemies"). What harm could that do?

One example of harm is one of our great national disgraces; the internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry in WWII. We allowed our fellow citizens to be denied their rights as citizens, taken from their homes, stripped of all property and moved across the country to be put in detention camps. How could this happen, and with so little objection? Were these people, to most Americans, neighbors and fellow citizens or the people depicted on stereopticon cards and labeled as dangerous by the newspapers and radio? The answer would seem to be obvious. I am not in any way attempting to excuse the treatment of our fellow citizens by the U.S. Government (us), for it will always be a source of great national shame, but I think I see how it could happen; one-way filtered perspectives make it easy to believe only what we are shown. (Take a few minutes to read about the 442nd Infantry Regiment in WWII. It was composed of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry, many of whom had family in the internment camps. The law that started the internments was signed 72 years ago tomorrow, Feb. 19, 1942 - not that long ago.)

But we are beyond that now, right? Be careful if you only listen to media outlets that tell you what you want to hear, or that only tell you what they want you to know. To some extent we are just looking at modern versions of the stereopticon cards.

 The stereopticon illuminating a slide of a U.S. Mail biplane.

Typical stereopticon card from the U.S.A.

Stereopticon card from Russia. The caption reads, "Interesting Peasant Types in the Street of a Rural Village in Russia". 

Old Military Rifles

I have a few old rifles that were involved in 20^th Century history. These come from the Soviet Union, USA, Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, but my favorites are the Swedish Mausers. My oldest Swede was made in 1899 and is still an accurate rifle that I shoot occasionally, but, more importantly, it represents a way of thinking that protected a nation throughout WWI and WWII.

The Mauser rifle was developed in Germany near the end of the 1800s and the Swedes licensed the right to produce their own version. Sweden had the best steel in the world and produced these rifles through 1944. The rifles are bolt action, which means that to load each round of ammunition the operator was required to pull the bolt back, extract a spent shell casing, and then push the bolt forward to put a new round in the chamber. By today’s standards of automatic and semi-automatic rifles this is obsolete, but by the standards of the day these were the finest and most accurate rifles on the planet. 

Deterrence matters in preserving peace. Before WWII the Nazis made a deal to buy Swedish iron ore. Sweden was neutral when the war broke out and, because the iron ore was critical to the German war effort, they could have been invaded as their neighbor Norway had been.  As a neutral nation, Sweden continued to sell iron ore to Germany but, as part of the deal, Germany had to deliver to Sweden some of their finest military rifle scopes, the Ajack. Sweden was and is a nation of shooters, and their citizens at the time had to undergo compulsory military training that included the use of rifles. All citizen soldiers took their rifles home with them so as to be ready for quick mobilization. Shortly after the outbreak of war, when the German need for iron ore was increasing, the Nazis realized that they had sent the best rifle scopes in the world to an armed and prepared nation of accomplished shooters with the finest rifles in the world; the invasion of Sweden never happened. The Swedes and their magnificent rifles and trained populace prevented an invasion; there is something to be said for an armed citizenry.

In my collection I have reminders of bad ideas; Nazi rifles (German Mausers) that were captured on the Russian front from the hands of the aggressors, and Soviet rifles that were captured by Finland in the Winter War, improved and then turned on the Soviet invaders. There are reminders of success and victory as well; Soviet rifles that were never captured and may have been in Berlin on VE Day, and U.S. rifles that were carried by our troops in the European theater and the Pacific. These old rifles are not worth very much and the U.S. Government classifies them as “Curios and Relics”, but to me old military rifles are more than about shooting; they are tangible reminders from recent history of lessons that should not be forgotten.

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As an addendum, here is a bit more about Swedish Mausers. Each was built one piece at a time and all parts were custom fitted with every other part. Most parts of the rifle are numbered, and when all the numbers match it indicates that the rifle is totally original as it came from the armory. Over time from 1898 through the Second World War, cartridges advanced to higher bullet velocities. The Swedes had thousands of rifles with old and expensive-to-replace rear sights for elevation that were not adequate for the new ammunition. The solution to this problem was not new rifles, it was the addition of a metal tag to the stock of the rifle that informed the infantryman how to interpret the elevation on the old sight to match the new ammunition. It was a simpler time, but these bolt action rifles remained the best ever made, and still are today. The last Swedish Mauser was retired from Swedish military service in 1995.

The rifle pictured above was made in 1903. The brass disk in the photo above indicates that this was rifle number 867 of the 71st area of the 20th Infantry Regiment, Landstormen (experienced troops used for area defense). The rectangular metal plate indicates the elevation adjustment for new ammunition issued after this rifle was made. 

You can read more about the Swedish Mausers here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Mauser .

The camera does not make the photographer

I attended an excellent insect photography workshop a couple of years ago and the attendees included everything from poor students to wealthy retired people. It was interesting to note that several of the older people had the finest expensive camera equipment and thought themselves above using anything less than the best. The other school of thought was exemplified by the graduate students who had point and shoot cameras for the most part, and lots of imagination. The workshop reminded me that the camera does not make the photographer. If you don't believe me then check out The Bug Geek's photos taken with a point and shoot camera. Her blog is here. 

I have some fairly expensive camera equipment, mostly because there are times when I need it on the job. However, I know full well that the equipment does not make the photo, the photographer does. (Or in my case sometimes I get lucky and get a good photo.) I have a Canon 5D MkIII at work and you might think I used it to take this photo of sorghum at sunrise. No, this is an iPhone shot straight off the camera.

I rest my case; certainly not about being a good photographer, but about getting lucky occasionally. And about the camera not making the photographer. 

Local vs. online shopping

We have a real camera store in Lubbock, the only real camera store between Dallas, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is not a Big Box store with inexperienced, rotating 20-somethings trying to sell cameras, computers and refrigerators to customers, it is a real store staffed by people who are expert photographers and who are devoted to photography and customer service; they want their customers to take great photos. I visit the store frequently and listen to the staff help walk-in people with camera problems, make honest recommendations on new equipment, and provide photographic advice. This is what is quaintly known these days as "full service" and it costs money to have experts on staff six days a week. 

The store sells cameras, lenses and accessories for suggested retail price. The inventory is easily worth $250,000 just so that customers can buy what they need when they enter the store. My local store is in competition with online retailers and Big Box stores who, with lower prices and often no real inventory, offer no support or expertise and just sell cameras and lenses (and good luck if you have a problem with them). Why the price difference? The first factor is volume; it is cheaper to sell to thousands than it is to sell to tens. The second is service; local experts willing to help. The third is sales tax which is 8.25% here. 

I do buy clothes online from retailers like LL Bean and Orvis because it is impossible to get quality cotton field clothes locally. However, I make every effort to buy local items from local merchants; if I can get it locally I buy it locally. The people in our small local stores provide excellent service at fair prices, and that is something I value. During my time at the local camera store I have seen people walk in and take an hour or more of the staff time to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of particular cameras, and then demand a discount equivalent to the price on some online store that provides no service and has no sales tax. You can imagine what I think about this behavior. (And how will my local store pay the man or woman who spent the hour answering your questions and providing you unbiased, honest advice?)  The fact of the matter is that local is quality, local is service, and local is good for all of us. Buy local when you can, it matters. 

Who owns this country?

The government shutdown is still in full swing and National Parks and National Monuments are closed. The news media are reporting that WWII veterans were not allowed to visit the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C. until Congress intervened. In fact our West Texas Senator, Randy Neugebauer, was in the news for disagreeing with a Park Service employee who refused to let the veterans visit the memorial. Good for him; the WWII veterans earned the right to visit the memorial that honors their service to the nation. Period.

However, this episode and the shutdown of parks and monuments has made me wonder who owns them and, by extension, who owns this country. I would suggest that many of the open spaces that have been shut down should be open to all citizens, even if the rest of the government is shut down. In theory these open spaces belong to us. Recall the recent Public Broadcasting Service television ad that showed many wild places in national parks and said, "This belongs to you". Well, maybe not anymore? (I am strictly writing of the parks and forests and monuments; the lands and treasures in our nation that we hold in common as citizens, and I am not making any inference about buildings, services and agencies.) I think, at least for this writer, there is a difference between my country and my government; the latter does not own the former. The shutdown has forced me to reckon with this issue and I think it is wrong to close access to the land and the monuments; they are owned by the people of the nation and not the government. The government's role is one of a caretaker to hold them in trust across generations, but we, the citizens, own the National Parks, Forests and Monuments. And I hope we still own this country.