We spoke to the photographer about his latest zine BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Vol 2 which brings together the most memorable images from his archive of intimate nudes

Ali Tahayori: Archival Longing, 2024

Archive of Longing searches for moments of vulnerability, love and belonging within an inherited family archive, glimpses that often escape the photographer’s gaze and the subject’s agenda. The family photographs are cropped, enlarged, digitally altered and then printed on glass sheets. The printed glass is broken and reassembled to create 3D sculptural reliefs from 2D vintage photographs. The personal becomes the universal, as information is removed from photos through abstraction, fragmentation and distortion provided by raised broken printed glass

Photograph: Roya Khadjavi Projects/ Nemazee Fine Art

Birding with a medium format camera? Well, yes. Fujifilm wants you to believe that it’s possible. Even I was a bit excited yet skeptical. But the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 is indeed a real lens. The company, which has never had the best autofocus system, believes that medium format photographers and others will really enjoy this lens and all that it can do. As I was testing this lens, several questions were in my mind. Can I really make better pictures with this thing than I can with several 35mm full-frame lenses? Will it be able to keep up with small, erratically-moving birds in the foliage? And is it something that I’d want to carry around for a while? Let me tell you: I haven’t been this surprised at a lens since the Fujifilm 50mm f1. And more importantly, the hype is justified this time around.

Editor’s Note: Some of this review was done with a pre-production version of the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6. A full production unit will be coming later on and we will complete the review then.

The Big Picture: Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 Review Conclusions

We’re going to save this section for our final conclusions and review. It will be updated accordingly. But in the mean time, you can check it out on Amazon.

Pros

• Very lightweight for what it is
• Weather resistance
• Sharp, but also at times, soft image quality
• Wonderful color rendition
• The bokeh makes images look like a dream

Cons

• Autofocus speed is what I expect from a lens made for a DSLR. In fact, those were faster at times.

Innovations

This is the longest telephoto lens for digital mirrorless medium format cameras. Period. That’s it, at least as of the publishing of this review. It’s also very lightweight, weather resistant, and balances the line between sharp and character. They did a very good job here.

Gear Used

We tested the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 with the Fujifilm GFX100s running the latest firmware. Our initial tests were done with a pre-production lens loaned to us by Fujifilm. The camera was loaned to us by a dear friend and super fan of the website whom we adore like a bokeh fanboy.

Hardware

When I got the Fujifilm 500mm f5.6 in for review, something felt odd. I immediately wondered if it’s a Sigma lens of the same make. Yes, we know that’s a full-frame 35mm lens. But to get their image quality, Sigma often makes the optics larger than full-frame to cover medium format. As it is, the dimensions are pretty much the Sigma 500mm f5.6. Even the front filter thread is the same 95mm.

Could Fujifilm have really just licensed the lens from Sigma the way that other brands tend to do? Olympus (or OM System) and Leica both have done this in the past, but put their own spins on everything else but the optics.

On a call with our Fujifilm reps, who we have reasons to believe, they stated that it’s an original OEM lens. Typically, in this industry, a manufacturer will say something instead like “It was developed by Insert The Name of Their Company Here.”

But in this case, I got a straight-up, “Nope.” Later on, and without my asking, my rep confirmed that the two lenses have different optical formulas, designs, number of elements, etc.

I have reasons to believe our reps, and generally folks at Fujifilm have some of our highest trust of any manufacturer. But it still oddly feels like a lens that would be made for full-frame cameras. Why is it so incredibly similar? For decades, Fujifilm was the OEM glass maker for other brands. These days, it tends to be Tamron, Sigma, Hoya, and Cosina.

In essence, that’s also a way of saying, “Jeez, this thing is light.” I walked around the Ridgewood Reservoir and Highland Park in Queens, NY with this lens and the camera for around 4 hours with little to no fatigue. In fact, I could’ve been shoot for far longer if I didn’t have a doctor’s appointment to go to. From 5:30am to 9:30, this lens was attached to the GFX body and I had no issues handholding it for a very long walk of several miles. To boot, I didn’t even drink caffeine or had more than a few sips of water.

This lens feels great in the hand and it’s got weather resistance built in. That’s needed much more than you’d think, especially when it comes to birding. Here in NYC, the best birding time is typically in fall or spring. It’s during that time that you need the durability of this lens. With lots of controls all over it, you’re always going to be able to find what you need easily. At one point I needed to set the focus to manual override, and with a switch of a slider on the lens, I got it activated.

A Reminder to Protect Your Camera Gear

Even though the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 boasts weather resistance, your warranty won’t cover problems that may occur with it from wear and tear. This is why we have the Photography Care Plan.

For years, here at The Phoblographer we’ve done tests on cameras, lenses, bags, computers, lights, and more. And we know that your warranty doesn’t always cover the damage. Plus, accidents can happen on set.

This is why we’ve created a Photography Care Program in partnership with Full-Frame Insurance. Now, photographers across the United States looking for extra security can get various protections to cover their craft. The Photography Care Program provides peace of mind; now you’ll know you can bounce back from a photoshoot gone awry, on-site or inside. We’re making it super easy to get it done, too! Better yet, there is coverage outside of the US and Canada when the photographer is traveling for short periods of time for business.

We’re able to do this through our partnership with Full-Frame Insurance, a company specializing in Small Business Insurance. Are you a Freelance Photographer? We’ll cover you. What about a freelance multi-media journalist? We’ve got you. The Photography Care Program will protect you.

Focusing

The autofocus is really only as good as the camera system in many ways. And overall, Fujifilm is behind the pack. Still, you can get great photos with this lens. I tended to use the Fujifilm GFX 100S in AF-C mode with tracking. Overall, it did an alright job. But even when setting the camera up to track and lock onto birds, it’s not the most ideal system. Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, and Panasonic are all still doing a better job. It doesn’t hurt that they all have scene detection, either.

With the Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6, the autofocus is pretty slow when the GFX is set to normal mode. Set it to Boost Mode with one of the autofocus priority settings, and it will indeed get a bit of an extra boost. But still, you’re going to miss shots. With patience and perseverance, a skilled veteran photographer will still get a lot of great images to take home.

By all means, though, this isn’t capable of standing up to anything from Canon or Sony’s 35mm full-frame options. Nor can it match any birding lens attached to the Nikon Z8, Nikon Z9, Leica SL3, or Panasonic S5 II with the latest firmware update.

So, is it slow? Yes. Is it medium format? Yes. Am I surprised and disappointed at Fujifilm? No.

Oh, and it will have problems finding small, fast birds in the foliage, let alone keeping up with them. However, that could be because it’s attached to an older GFX camera. As it is, I’d be a bit disappointed if I had to upgrade cameras to get the most out of a lens like this.

Mind you, slow isn’t necessarily a bad thing. With the GFX, I returned to shooting a single frame at a time with continuous and tracking autofocus enabled. I took home fewer images, but I was much more intentional and careful about what I shot. This is the type of photography that I’ve been missing for such a long time. It’s the antithesis of shooting 120 frames a second just because you can only so you will need to figure it out later. If you need an AI plugin to cull your images for you when you’re not shooting a paid gig, are you even being intentional when you shoot?

Even if I’m on a paid gig, I cull in-camera with star ratings, and I never look back. Slowing down yields you great images, and there’s something to be said for giving the camera and lens more assistance than using scene detection. Don’t get me wrong, scene detection is an incredible invention that has democratized photography is so many ways. But I wouldn’t expect it at all to work that well with the GFX system because they’ve always been behind in that department.

Ease of Use

When photographing birds with this lens, always ensure the OIS is activated, the autofocus presets are dialed in, and the focus limiter it set to what you want. Using the GF 500mm f5.6 is a point-and-shoot affair for the most part. I’m really not kidding about the image stabilization — I’m very capable when it comes to handholding lenses but even I need help here. Otherwise, bring a tripod with you.

For extra fun, enable the GFX camera to 35mm format mode to get a true 500mm f5.6.

Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 Image Quality

This next section of the hardware segment is for anyone who’s been shooting Fujifilm for years. I’ve been a Fujifilm user since the X Pro 1, and please trust me when I say this: something feels off – and it has ever since the release of the new 23mm f1.4 R WR lens. It’s far more clinical and sterile feeling than the company’s previous lenses. In meetings with Fujifilm, they’ve also acknowledged that you can get the character you want from those older lenses.

At the same time, I’m talking about X mount. This is GF mount – so things might be different. They’re probably going much more clinical here overall. For the wildlife crowd they’re reaching long and hard for, I understand that.

So yes, it’s sharp – and at times can even have a soft sharpness. But I’m pretty sure that this is based on the film simulation. With Velvia enabled, I got some insanely sharp photos. With Classic Chrome, I got some softness. With that said, this lens teeters between clinical and character. This, again, makes me believe that this is a Sigma lens at least in some way. But again, I’m not 100% sure.

I shot most of my photos using the Classic Chrome simulation because it mimics the look of vintage National Geographic magazines. And overall, I loved the look I got. I truly can’t complain much here. This was indeed my inspiration for the images as well. When I first got into photography, I used to enter National Geographic’s Weekly Shot contest where they’d showcase images from readers on their website. That, and many of the photos that I’ve seen in magazines are the ones that I love so much. The last time that I really got images like this from a Fujifilm camera were with the Fujifilm 200mm f2 lens and the 150-500mm Tamron lens on X mount. But on GF mount, they’re even better.

During the morning sunrise, the sun and leaves would interplay off of the natural colors of the birds’ feathers. At times, it would mimic the wonderful look of the sun shining off of the sea. That’s to say that it seemed to almost sparkle. Where the sun sparkles a celestial silver off of the water, it glows with a warm, welcoming, and wondrous soft golden in the trees. This soft gold is bedazzling – and with the right white balance it creates images that many will want to stare at for a long time. This soft light only helps to accentuate how beautiful the bokeh from this lens can be. Even when I was having traditional “issues” with the electronic shutter, the images were still nice to look at and made for aesthetic effects that I couldn’t stop staring at.

On the LCD screen, some of the images absolutely looked like a beautiful, hyperrealistic painting. In the way that old master painters were inspired by swans along a lake, you could be easily enamored with Mallards in murky pools. Some of you folks might be going for the most clinically sound images. But there comes a point in your photography journey where you know that you can get that easily from all the camera gear on the market and if you can’t, then you often just need to use a flash or a CPL filter. This lens is one of the best ones I’ve seen to live on the edge of each of those worlds.

With so much gear on the market, it’s hard to sometimes stay inspired. But this one makes it easy. The GFX system is far superior to the X series, where APS-C sensors are truly now running into performance barriers. Using this lens made me so proud of the photos I made.

Extra Sample Images

The Phoblographer has been huge on transparency with our audience since day one. Nothing from this review is sponsored. Further, many folks will post reviews and show lots of editing in the photos. The problem then becomes that anyone and everyone can do the same thing. They’re not showing what the lens can do. So, we have a section in our Extra Image Samples area to show edited and unedited photos. From this, you can decide for yourself.

Unedited

Edited

Flawed, But Artistically Cool

I’m purposely including these images to remind everyone that we’re an art website first and to move away from the traditional conversations around image quality. Every camera and every lens can give you a great image these days. The manufacturers are overengineering things to suppress what they think are flaws. But at the same time, by creating more clinical images, we’re all creating the same photos and not differentiating ourselves from AI.

Fujifilm GF 500mm f5.6 Tech Specs

Palestinian war photographer Motaz Azaiza said he had gone from “beauty maker to taking picture of destruction” in a tearful speech in London at an event marking the 1948 Nakba.

“I used to be the photographer of the beauty of Gaza,” Azaiza told a packed hall on Wednesday.

“I was always fighting to make beautiful pictures of my home town.”

He became known on social media for his daily reporting of the war, and left Gaza in February for treatment.

“I lost the people that I captured in my pictures, lots of places I used to hang out there and take pictures there, I lost my access to my city, I lost the days I spent in my home,” Azaiza said.

He recalled how, before the war, he would gather stories of the Nakba from those in Gaza’s refugee camps who remembered it, and wish he’d been there at the time to photograph it.

‘“The second Nakba I’ve been old enough to witness. There are times I wish I didn’t,” Azaiza said of the war in Gaza.

“I was a beauty maker, and now I’m a photographer of destruction. I thank God for one thing, that he used me in a good way, to serve my home and my country.

“I wish the day will come to reach a free Palestine.”

Hundreds had gathered at Westminster Central Hall, outside the Houses of Parliament, to hear stories from poets and writers about the 1948 Nakba – in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out after the establishment of the state of Israel – and voices from the war in Gaza.

Many in the audience were British Palestinians, descendants of those displaced in 1948, who came wearing traditional embroidered fabrics and their keffiyehs across their shoulders.

They were joined by Arab diplomats and UK politicians at the event, which was hosted by the Palestinian Mission to the UK and the Council of Arab Ambassadors.

Singer Rola Azar sang songs in a code language that mothers created to communicate with their sons outside Israeli prisons.

Writers gave readings on Gaza written by Palestinians who currently live there. Oud player Adnan Joubran described Palestinians as “survivors” and played music for “healing.”

Aymen Odeh, the Israeli politician of Palestinian origin, praised the large turnout at the event.

Mr Odeh said it was a call to the British government to recognise its historical responsibility for the Nakba and bring an end to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, and make the two-state solution a reality.

“It is a resounding ethical declaration against the war on Gaza, and for the end of injustice against the Palestinian people and the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he said.

“There is only one way to achieve democracy and security and justice and live in peace.

“Every child, including Palestinian children, has the right to live in safety of peace within a sovereign, democratic state.

“The only solution is to respect the national rights of both peoples and to live in peace, stability and security.

“Some are stuck in a culture of death, but we insist on promoting a culture of dignified life for all brothers and sisters … standing on the right side of history.”

The Israeli government knew of the awakening “conscience” of younger generations of Jewish Israelis, and sought to suppress lessons of the Nakba for that reason.

Yet the stories of the Nakba had lived on among Palestinians, who would continue to tell them over generations.

“We know all the stories of the Nakba against our people from our parents,” Mr Odeh said.

Israel was revealing its true intentions behind the 1948 Nakba with the Gaza war, said Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary General of the Arab League, which he described as “ethnic cleansing”.

Dr Husam Zomlot, Palestine’s envoy to the UK, recalled his childhood in a refugee camp in Gaza, and how he quarrelled with his grandfather, who escaped the Nakba.

“I always questioned my grandfather’s decision to leave in 1948,” Dr Zomlot said.

“‘Why?’ I would ask him angrily at times. We had homes, we had farms. Life was different.

“I was resentful for years, but now seven months into a genocide that has killed and maimed more than 100,000 Palestinian people so far, and as Israeli tanks roll into Rafah, the city of my birth, I not only understand my late grandfather, I ask his forgiveness for not realising soon enough.”

Sir Alan Duncan, a former Conservative MP, condemned the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and called on the UN to recognise the state of Palestine.

“International law is international law, you cannot just pick and choose the rules you wish to obey and ignore the ones you don’t,” Sir Alan said.

“Israel cannot call itself a democracy unless it behaves like one. Democracy is not just about elections, it’s about everything else that goes with them.

“Democracy does not permit a majority group to systematically oppress a minority.”

Another witness to the war in Gaza was British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah, who spent the first two months of the war there treating the injured,.

Dr Abu Sitta received a standing ovation as he came on stage to talk about Israeli attacks on the Palestinian healthcare system.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society, he said, was one of the first medical organisations to become part of a liberation movement, thanks to the resilience of its Palestinian doctors.

“People identified the provision of health, the provision of life, as part of their resistance to the world of death, that Zionism and its erasure of the Palestinians wanted,” Dr Abu Sittah said.

Updated: May 16, 2024, 6:25 AM

Jacob H. Ford of Monongahela will exhibit his photographs this weekend at the Frank L. Melega Art Museum in Brownsville.

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This show of official royal portrait photography – the first exhibition at the newly renamed King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace – could have been so stilted, yet isn’t. The secret of its success? It takes the photographers as seriously as their high-born sitters, and traces the trajectory of a medium over the past century, as immaculate soft-focus effects, achieved within the studio by practitioners with first names such as Bertram and Olive, gave way to something more intimate and informal.

Of course, Royal Portraits – which includes, among 160 vintage prints, several unseen images – is awash with glamour and familiar faces: how could an exhibition containing dozens of shots by Cecil Beaton be anything but? Its early sections are a numinous, natty haze of tulle and taffeta gowns, fur stoles, and peaked lapels; later, Princess Margaret – sometimes bare-shouldered, always brilliant-eyed – displays a film star’s smouldering poise. Likewise, Princess Diana, who appears three times: once, in playful maternal mode; twice, flirtatiously close-up. (Queen Camilla pops up in four photographs.)

It takes the King a little longer to demonstrate such ease in front of the camera. A double portrait by Beaton captures him as a chubby boy sitting beneath his angular father, who dwarfs him; delicately, a label refers to the “paternal dynamic”. Nearby, in a portrait released to mark his 18th birthday, he comes across as sweet but gawky.

Nadav Kander’s monumental headshot, though, commissioned by Time in 2013, and prominently displayed against a cardinal-red wall in the final room, is a persuasive vision of modern monarchy. In it, Charles (then still the Prince of Wales) appears considerably brisker and more at ease than he does in Jonathan Yeo’s painted likeness of him as a doddery regimental colonel drenched by a tropical crimson storm, unveiled earlier this week. Deftly, Kander ensures that his subject’s shirt, tie, buttonhole, and silvery hair all echo, and so enhance, his glittery grey-blue gaze.

Yet, the exhibition’s interest in photographers and their craft – its art-historical chops, in other words – also deserves respect. The curator, Alessandro Nasini, is mindful that photographs are objects with tangible properties, and finds room for unusual exhibits, such as a touched-up dry plate negative or a solarised print of Princess Elizabeth. Labels are rarely sycophantic, but point out subtle material details, such as the way that textured paper can give a print a “velvet-like quality”, or the fact that the “diamond dust” supposedly embellishing Andy Warhol’s screenprint of Elizabeth II is really “fine particles of crushed glass”. Blue squiggles overlaying the Queen’s face in Warhol’s image recall red annotations by Lord Snowdon indicating areas for retouching on a nearby proof of Princess Margaret. Celebrity is an artful construction.