I am beginning work on a new, significant photography project. I don’t wish to give out many details at this time because the project is in its formative stages - writing an organizational plan, setting up a Patreon, etc - but I believe that it will be well-received. My hope is that this photography project leads to an eventual gallery show and a book, and much exposure for the subject at-large. There will be a lot of work, but I think that I am ready for the moment. More details to come, including the announcement soon.
AI and photography
I’ll make this simple - I am against any and all forms of AI to be used in photography. Period. Full Stop.
I do not believe that AI has any place in photography, and that usage of it detracts from the efforts by photographers to formulate and capture their subjects in their art form. I know that people are now using it for their own creations, but I am not in favor of AI in any art form. I find it to be a form of cheating, and nobody is going to argue with me that it’s an art form in and of itself. We, as photographers, must protect our art form from AI now before it’s too late. Just my 0.02, YMMV.
Waterfalls...
Brandywine Falls, Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
A study in local cemeteries
In getting used to and breaking in my new Hasselblad X2D-II, I’ve gone back to taking photographs of our local cemeteries. I love cemeteries for their varied architecture and diverse grave marker styles. I mostly love to view the different mausoleums, as they are quite interesting in their structure and design. I also love the various statues found in older cemeteries. The photographs below are representative of the main cemetery in Alliance, Ohio. I even got in a self-portrait!
big BIG changes and 180 shift!
So, in my last post, I described my manual camera system and how I was tired with digital. Well, thats changed.
I’ve decided to get back into digital format, ditching the analog for awhile. I am so happy, I was able to get my hands on a Hasselblad X2D-II medium-format camera! And simply from the elegant boxing of everything to just playing around with it - I haven’t had time to get out and shoot yet, in the throes of moving - I love everything about it! The menus and controls are so intuitive, it makes it very easy to use, and I cannot wait to get out and take some photographs hopefully this week with the nice weather.
Considering I’ll be working with ginormous files - 100 MB before editing - I did pick up a Mac Studio with starting-off 2 terabytes of hard-drive space. If things progress, I’d love to set up a network in my home with like 4TB of storage. But we’ll see what happens. I am also considering a pro printer to print my photographs if I should get some nice ones.
That’s all for now. I will try and keep my blog updated more frequently, at least for myself being about to record my thoughts about my photographic journey. I don’t know if anyone is reading this, but hopefully so.
Taking Pics and Camera Gear
Yesterday and today I finally got the opportunity to shoot some photos with my new camera. I went to a couple of local cemeteries to look for some interesting shots; one cemetery abuts my property, so I just need to walk out my backdoor and I’m there! One especially interesting shot was a Civil War section in the West Lawn Cemetery in Canto, OH. I hope those images come out looking good. I am going to another architecturally interesting one on Friday, the Glendale Cemetery in West Akron. I shot mostly with the Nikon 28mm today.
My gear kit is also fully set up. In addition to the Nikon F-2 Photomic that I have, I also acquired the following Nikon lenses: 28mm f/2.8 lens; 50mm f/1.4 lens; 85mm f/2 AI-S lens and; 200mm f/4 Micro AI-S lens. I also picked up some original Nikon lens hoods, camera body caps, and lens caps. For some creativity, I got color filter set from Tiffen, as well as a no. 12 Yellow filter. I also picked up a Sekonic L-308 X-U light meter. For a camera bag, I chose retro and got a Domke F-6 waxed canvas camera bag (my first professional camera bag in the 1970s was the original Domke F-2 bag).
It’ s my eventual goal to develop my own film, and possibly make prints at some point. I have a second bathroom, which can hopefully be made lightproof. Then it’s a matter of getting an enlarger and chemicals, trays and stuff to do my own printing.
Another thing that is going to happen at some point is changing this website. I’m overly happy with the design, and I will likely go with something more retro to match my black and white work.
Major Course Correction
My spring and summer warbler migration did not go off as planned, and I frankly had a very difficult summer personally. Hence, none of my new OM System gear made it out of the bag, to which I really didn’t care. I decided that I would sell my gear in order to pay off some bills as I wasn’t using it. But, I made another decision in conjunction with the sale.
This week, I bought the camera of my childhood dreams, the Nikon F-2 Photomic. And I am so excited! This is the camera that I wanted as a teen; my friend Peter Hornby was shooting with one, and I so very much wanted a Nikon. All I did in the summer of ‘76 was constantly read and reread photography magazines, lookiing at the Nikon ads and the pricing of them in the major New York camera stores. The truth was that i couldn’;t afford one, and I worked all summer at my uncle’s ice cream stand to be able to afford a Canon F-1, which was no slouch. But it wasn’t a Nikon. It wouldn’t be till I was 34 that I could afford a Nikon F-4S.
Everyone who was anyone photography-wise as shooting Kodachrome with a Nikon. And I wanted to be one of those guys, like Pete Turner or Galen Rowell, or Pete Hornby. Pete had such an informal effect on my photography, and I wanted to emulate him in every way. I remember shooting film among the dunes of Ocean Park, Maine, the ripples in sand following the outgoing tide.
But I digress. Why buy a completely manual, analog camera like the F-2? Because I decided that I wished to return to my roots, to come full circle as it were, and shoot pure black and white film versus converting digital images. I believe that shooting film will make me a better photographer, certainly more intentional, deliberate, and once again bring joy to my photography,
There was something to finding myself once again in a photography store, buying film, batteries and lens caps for my new 50mm f/1.4 non-AI lens. It brought back a lot of memories, when I hung out in camera shops in the ‘70s. Most of my digital gear I purchased online for the likes of B&H, Allen’s Camera, and Ace Photo. EBay is now my friend for gear, and I will be shopping at a great little store I found not too far from me named YM Camera in Youngstown, Ohio. They seem hooked into black and white photography, selling both film and developing services, which I’ll need in the beginning. Who knows, maube I’ll turn my bathroom into a darkroom…
I am so excited to share this new beginning in my photographic journey. And ‘m very excited to undertake this adventure. I’ll post more as things develop, so for now, ciao!
Choosing a camera bag
For anyone trying to find the best camera bag, my advice is forgetaboutit! There is no perfect, one bag to rule them all. I should know by now; I spent the last three weeks looking at dozens of YouTubes and visiting too many websites to count looking for the perfect bag, and my discovery, other than that I really like bags? There is no perfect bag and there is no one bag for everything.
The first bag I started out with, storing my new camera gear, was the Tenba DNA 13 messenger bag. The Tenba DNA 13 is a solid photographer’s messenger bag, with the ability to hold lots of gear in a smaller form factor than Tenba’s DNA 16 Pro. It held all of my gear and then some, right up until the point that I ordered the OM System 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS II telephoto zoom. With this, unfortunately, the bag wouldn’t do for a complete carry-all. So, I started searching for another bag, one that would absorb all of my gear, and hopefully have some room for extras.
As a result of all my YouTube watching, I decided to go for a backpack, as these bags typically are great for telephoto lenses and have lots of storage capacity. I went back to YouTube to search for best backpacks of 2025, and started watching more YouTubes. Two backpacks stood out: the PGYTech OnePro Focux 25L pack and the Summit-Creative Tenzing 25L zippered pack. I ended up buying the PGYTech backpack.
The PGYTech OnePro Focux bag is a very nice backpack, and I really did love it. It is constructed very well, is easily sizable, and huge. It lists at 25L, but the backpack seems noticeably larger than that, think 30-35L. It seems to want to fit DSLRs or mirrorless cameras with battery grips attached, huge cameras that otherwise might struggle with other bags. It seems perfect of a system built around either the Nikon Z-9, or Canon EOS R-1. I put all of my current camera gear in the backpack, and when I put on the pack, my gear seemed to shift around badly, especially my camera. Although it has velcro straps to secure gear in its respective cubby hole, the pack’s dividers are quite wide, leaving in my estimation about 3 inches of unusable space. This of course is great if you stack your lenses vertically rather than horizontally. In the end, although I really did love the bags construction and features - it has a space battery holder with indicators of whether the battery is charged or not - in the end it was simply way too big for me.
The bag that I did finally go with is the Shimoda Action X30 Women’s backpack with a large mirrorless core unit. Pics of the backpack below:
The women’s pack has special straps that s-curve at the chest, providing for a better fit for women. It’s a really comfortable fit, unique among photography backpack manufacturers. The Shimoda Action X30 is just a great pack, it contains all of my gear and then-some, and has an expandable opening on top to store even more stuff, like a rain jacket or hoodie. It comes with a raincover and a helmet holder. Although I haven’t taken the backpack out into the wild yet, I love it already. I feel the Shimoda Action X30 pack is the best photography backpack on the market currently.
Gearing up for bird photography
Today I received my first telephoto lens from Allen’s Camera in Pennsylvania, the one place that I make all of my major purchases. I purchased an OM System 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO Lens. It i compact, it is light (1.96 lbs), and it is mine! This will be one of my select birding lenses, perfect for the boardwalk at Magee Marsh for close-in warblers!
I will post photos here when I have the opportunity to take the lens out for a test-drive and hopefully photograph some birds.
I also pre-purchased the new OM System 100-400mm f/5.6-6.3 IS II zoom lens. I hope to get that towards the end of the month. With these lenses, I should be all set for birds!
Enjoying the sunshine
Yesterday, I enjoyed a beautiful weather day, one of few, and drove north to Geneva-on-the-Lake. I wanted to shoot some photos of the storefronts closed for winter. Here’s a few shots I got, including in Mesopotamia on the way back.
