American researcher Mark Dickey is carried in a stretcher after being pulled out of Morca cave, more than a week after he became seriously ill 1,000 metres (more than 3,000 feet) below its entrance. Teams from across Europe had rushed to the cave in the southern Taurus mountains to aid Dickey, a 40-year-old experienced caver who became seriously ill with stomach bleeding on 2 September
Photograph: Mert Gokhan Koc/AP
We all want to be better photographers, but the journey to that destination is often anything but straightforward. If you find yourself feeling a bit stuck and unsure of how to move forward, check out this helpful video tutorial that features an experienced photographer sharing some insightful and actionable advice that is sure to put you on the right track.
Coming to you from Shoot on Film, this great video tutorial offers a range of useful advice on how to become a better photographer. One of the most important points, in my opinion, is the idea that gear and technical skills are not the most important parts for improving. We have heard a million times about how gear does not matter anywhere near as much as the hype machine might lead us to believe, but the idea of technique is a lesser-discussed issue. Of course, that is not to say you can get by without solid technique. Rather, it acknowledges the fact that sometimes, technical image quality is overly emphasized at the expense of a creative and original approach. Technique should be a support for creativity, not the main point of the process. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
HACKENSACK — The Northwoods Arts Council will host award-winning author Marcie R. Rendon to present “Writing Local: the land, the people, the history” at 1 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at United Congregational Church in Hackensack.
The event is free, but reservations are required at northwoodsartscouncil.org.
Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, author, playwright, poet, freelance writer and a community arts activist. Rendon supports other Native artists, writers and creators to pursue their art and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership and writing.
Contributed / Northwoods Art Council
Rendon is the author of the award-winning “Cash Blackbear” crime novel series set in the Red River Valley and nearby reservations. Her latest book, “Sinister Graves,” was inspired by an isolated Idaho graveyard about 15 years ago.
She is working with Out of Hand Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, to produce her script “Say Their Names.” Rendon was listed in Oprah’s 2020 list of 31 Native American authors to read.
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She received Minnesota’s 2020 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award.
Rendon will be selling and signing her books after the presentation.
For more information about the author and her books, visit
A donation from the Hackensack Lions funded this presentation.
From October 11, 2023 to January 7, 2024, the Hayward Gallery in London presents Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, the largest survey exhibition to date of the Japanese artist, architect, and photographer. The exhibition showcases Sugimoto’s best-known works, as well as lesser-known projects, and highlights the artist’s interest in the history of photography, mathematics, and optical sciences.
Featuring key works from all of the artist’s major photographic series, the exhibition illuminates his philosophical yet playful exploration of our understanding of time and memory, as well as the ambiguous nature of photography as a medium that lends itself to both documentation and invention. ‘The camera is a time machine capable of representing the sense of time… The camera can capture more than a single moment, it can capture history, geological time, the concept of eternity, the essence of time itself… The more I think about that sense of time, the more I think this is probably one of the key factors of how humans became humans,’ Hiroshi Sugimoto shares.
UA Playhouse, New York, 1978 | all images courtesy of Hiroshi Sugimoto
Time Machine at Hayward Gallery (find more here) begins with a selection of the artist’s black-and-white photographs of natural history dioramas, a series he began in the mid-1970s. The diorama photographs draw attention less to the natural world than to its theatrical display in museums, while evoking what Hiroshi Sugimoto (find more here) has called the ‘fragility of existence.’ The theme of time is also explored in two other works on view in the exhibition: Sugimoto’s Theaters (1976 – ), shot in both movie palaces and drive-in theaters, capture entire films with a single long exposure, compressing all the dramatic action seen on screen into a single image of brilliant white. His famous Seascapes (1980 – ), which show evenly divided expanses of sea and sky without any trace of human existence evoke the immediacy of abstract painting while expressing Sugimoto’s interest in focusing on vistas that, as he notes, ‘are before human beings and after human beings.’
In Architecture (1997 – ), a series of deliberately out-of-focus studies of iconic modernist buildings-from the Eiffel Tower to the Twin Towers-Sugimoto demonstrates the wide-ranging ambiguity that characterizes his art, while conveying a sense of the visual germ of an idea in an architect’s mind, as well as ghostly images of what he has called ‘architecture after the end of the world.’ For his later series, Portraits (1999), the artist pointed his camera at wax models of famous historical figures at Madame Tussauds. Rendered in black and white, the more lifelike figures, from Queen Elizabeth to Oscar Wilde to Salvador Dali, seem disarmingly alive, underscoring the camera’s potential to alter our perceptions. As the artist noted, ‘However fake the subject, once photographed, it’s as good as real.’
Lightning Fields 225, 2009
A final section of Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine focuses on photographs that evoke different notions of timelessness, including his Sea of Buddha series (1995), which features an installation in a 12th-century Kyoto temple with 1000 gilded wooden statues of the Buddha, and Lightning Fields (2006 – ), off-camera photographs created by exposing sensitized paper to electrical pulses from a Van der Graaf generator. The exhibition concludes with a gallery dedicated to Sugimoto’s Opticks (2018 – ), intensely colored photographs of prism-refracted light. Inspired by Newton’s research on the properties of light, but also borrowing from color field painting and artists such as Mark Rothko, Opticks presents deeply penetrating fields of subtly varying hues. Presented alongside his photographs are two of Sugimoto’s polished aluminum sculptures that allude to both mathematical equations and abstract forms favored by modernists such as Constantin Brâncuși.
‘Hiroshi Sugimoto is a brilliant visual poet of paradox, a polymath postmodern who embraces meticulous old-school craftsmanship to produce exquisite, uncanny pictures that reference science and maths as well as abstract art and Renaissance portraits. Juggling different conceptions of time, and evoking visions ranging from primordial prehistory to the end of civilization, his photographs ingeniously recalibrate our basic assumptions about the medium and alter our sense of history, time, and existence itself. Amidst all his peers, his work stands apart for its depth and striking originality of thought.’ shares Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery.
Mathematical Model 002 Dini’s Surface, 2005
Manatee, 1994
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In the middle of downtown San Antonio, a block or two from Texas Public Radio’s downtown headquarters, photographer Kat Swansey is lining up a shot. Standing dead in front of the 18th century De La Garza house, she carefully pulls focus.
“It looks like something you would see in West Texas,” Swansey remarks.
After every shot, Swansey cranks a handle on the camera to advance her film to the next frame.
“It’s all manual,” she explains. “There’s no autofocus on here, I have to manually line up every shot and focus, get the aperture right.”
Based in Austin, Swansey shoots on film, exclusively. She’s part of a growing number of artists who are choosing film as a way of expressing their unique vision — and keeping the analog film industry alive. You might be surprised to learn that Kodak and Fujifilm are still very much in business. And 30 years ago, a company built out of a kind of an artist collective opened up shop.
Brian Lincoln
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Lomography
Digital photography was still in its infancy when Lomography started selling film. And since the company’s founding they’ve offered brilliant color or tinted film stock for an artistic touch, says Birgit Buchart, the New York-based General Manager of Lomography in the United States.
“These people decided to treat film photography as like a fun and experimental kind of hobby that is not trying to be the best quality depiction of reality, but just like a creative tool in your daily life,” she explains.
That emphasis on everyday art, and celebrating the time it takes to develop, has helped the company sustain its business through the digital takeover of the industry.
“Nowadays, especially for people who grew up with digital or even smartphone cameras in their pockets, a lot of the time, the appeal for film photography is you have to wait, you have to be patient,” Buchart said. “And [there’s] that surprising moment when you get the film back from the lab and when you have something fun! Like completely different colors, that that’s really exciting.”
Lomography
Back in Texas, Swansey muses, “I’ve just always been really interested in a life that happened before me.”
Swansey grew up in Brenham, taking road trips on the backroads with her grandfather, who she says was a wealth of information about Washington County.
Now, her new book “Texas Textures” looks at old gas stations, farmhouses, and classic signage, and features not only her photographs, but a narrative about the places she’s visited that’s full of historical information.
“I wanted to make sure I was doing right by these places.”
Swansey spends a lot of time on the road in West Texas. Of the film photos she takes, she says, “I love the grain. I even love the dust that occasionally makes its way into your shots. I feel like it adds a little bit more texture to the images. And I just love that with each photo I take, I’m creating something physical and something that’s tangible that I can hold.”
Kat Swansey
Swansey isn’t the only one that feels that way today, says Lomography’s Birgit Buchart.
“The more digitized our world gets, the more people are longing for something analog,” Buchart says. “We are less of a niche company than we used to be 10 or 15 years ago.”
Like many hobbies, film photography can get expensive, if you let it. But point and shoot cameras can be found for less than $50 online, and a roll of film is somewhere between 10 and 15 bucks. Some chain drugstores still process film (although it takes several days), and independent labs will process and scan negatives for sharing online.
Web Extra: Interview with Birgit Buchart of Lomography.
Listen • 19:26
Buchart says “Browsing and getting inspired by other photographers is also a great way to get into it.”
The benefits of the art form are as endless as the Texas backroads Swansey travels.
“I’ve met people around the world that I would have never had an opportunity to connect with or learn from,” Swansey says. “And it’s fun. It gets you out into the world. You can see things that you maybe have driven past a hundred times, and never even looked at a second time.”
Like the De la Garza house, just steps from TPR’s downtown studio. Take another look at the top of this page, to see it again, for the first time.
Nathan Cone
The National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP) is one of the world’s largest repositories of aerial imagery, boasting millions of historic images capturing significant events and locations across the globe.
NCAP’s primary responsibility is to collect and safeguard these valuable records, encompassing digital and physical formats, ensuring their preservation for future generations.
To address the considerable challenges related to handling and conservation, Alan Potts, the Digital Imaging Manager, sought out Monmouth Scientific for a solution to establish a meticulously clean environment for the NCAP team’s secure collection management.
Image Credit: Monmouth Scientific Limited
Upon relocating to a state-of-the-art collections care and digitization facility in Edinburgh, the National Collection of Aerial Photography gained the necessary space to address these crucial challenges.
Monmouth Scientific’s proficient team identified the Recirculating Fume Cupboard as the optimal answer to meet the team’s requirements, providing the technicians with a safe and efficient workspace.
Due to the archive’s age and previous storage conditions, certain items have suffered degradation over time.
This resulted in mold growth on around 6.5 million photographic prints. Before creating digital replicas, these prints require careful mold removal within a Recirculating Fume Cupboard, along with suitable personal protective equipment (PPE).
For the film archive, a distinct issue arises, as the acetate base of the film can autocatalytically degrade, generating acetic acid.
Although not harmful, the smell can be unpleasant and cause irritation over extended exposure. This concern is mitigated by carrying out film preparation and digitization within a Recirculating Fume Cupboard, ensuring a healthier workspace for all staff members.
The Circulaire® Fume Cupboards offer the advantage of not needing external ducting, enabling flexible installation within the workspace.
These cupboards efficiently channel airflow towards the interior, capturing vapors at their source and confining them within a controlled working area. With the utilization of Activated Carbon filters, clean air is then expelled back into the laboratory.
By implementing this recirculating technology, which consumes minimal energy while delivering optimal performance, substantial cost savings are achieved, contributing to a greener and more sustainable laboratory environment.
With the new facility and workflow improvements, the NCAP experiences a significant transformation in addressing critical conservation issues as a top priority.
Working with Monmouth Scientific has been excellent. We had no knowledge of Recirculating Fume Cupboards within the team prior to this, so relied on Monmouth Scientific to guide us through the process of identifying and defining our risks and selecting the most appropriate equipment for the job.
Our unique application has required some bespoke solutions and Monmouth Scientific have been a great partner in engineering and building cabinets that fit our needs. Having the correct equipment and practices means that The National Collection of Aerial Photography can now move ahead with the monumental task of preserving this unique record of world events as seen from above, for future generations.”
Alan Potts, Digital Imaging Manager , Historic Environmental Scotland | National Collection of Aerial Photography
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Today, we are moving things up a notch by using LED lights for wedding photography. If you’ve ever photographed a wedding, there is a good chance you used a strobe to capture the event. Maybe it was a hot shoe strobe, or maybe you set up strobes on light stands in strategic places on the floor. But you can do better with LED video lights.
I started experimenting with LED lights for weddings a while back, but I was always missing on some power. Now, I am using a couple of Zhiyun x100 LEDs (those), and let me tell you, 100 Watts makes a big difference.
LEDs have come a long way since they first appeared. And looking at the current market offering, it has some real advantages over some other setups with strobes. There are still cases where strobes win, specifically when a ton of power is needed, but LEDs are now at a place where they have some real advantages.
Obviously, you get all the benefits of using continuous lights. LEDs have no recycle time, like you have with strobes. You can shoot at higher FPS. Or alternatively, be able to catch a good moment without worrying about flash availability. Another big advantage is the ability to control the temperature of the light and make sure it fits the atmosphere in the venue.
I was quite surprised at this, but in fact, a couple of Zhiyun X100 lights are not significantly bigger than three or four iPhones stacked together. This is partly because the technology has advanced, and partly because the Zhiyun x100 have a unique form factor. They are flat.
This means that they are easily packed in my wedding photography bag. But it also means that they have a low footprint when mounted on a stand. Combine this with the low weight of LEDs, and LEDs suddenly look like a very enticing option.
This is another thing I love about new tech. It is becoming battery-powered. You can run the lights on an internal battery, so no cables are going to the wall. (You could if you wanted to, but you don’t have to). This is particularly critical with wedding photography, because there is usually quite a bit of crowd next to the lights, and any cable going from the light to the wall is a light stand accident waiting to happen. If you’ve never had a person trip on a cable you are either very careful, very lucky, or have not ben in the business long enough.
I’ll admit that one of my concerns going from 60-watt LED video lights with passive cooling to a full-fledged 100-watt light was the fan noise. My previous 60-watt lights had no fan, and obviously no fan noise. But the Molus X100 has a built-in fan, and I needed to make sure that they don’t interfere with the work of the videographers. (Unlike common thinking, we still photographers actually care about your video people). The happy news is that the fan is almost silent and not audible at a wedding ceremony.
I was serious when I said that I cared about the videographers shooting the wedding. By using LED lights for shooting the wedding ceremony, I am helping them twice.
For starters, they get extra light, which, if placed properly, can be a real lifesaver for the videographers. But a nice added bonus is that they don’t get flash pops, which can interfere with both videography and sound.
In some ways, using LED lights is a lot like using strobes – you need a stand to position the lights in a three-dimensional space. I typically use two Zhiyun x100 lights mounted on light stands on each side of the ceremony. This gives me a nice and even light. I anchor the stands to the floor using weights.
The lights are small enough to get really high, and depending on the ceremony location, I can sometimes hide them all together.
Just like strobes, COB LEDs generate light from a single point. The beam form is a bit different, but it is still a hard light. Depending on the distance from the newlywed, I go with one of these options:
My setup is leaning more and more towards LED now. But sometimes there is no choice and you need to add a strobe. In those cases, I will use a bracket that mounts an AD200 along with the Molus x100.
Typically, you do not need a strobe if you are using an LED setup. That said, you may want to have a backup until you get comfortable with shooting using LEDs.
The other reason to have a strobe is to mitigate bad lighting from the venue. If the venue has horrible LEDs or fluorescents, you may not be able to use LEDs at all. A badly lit venue may create banding effects on your photos. This usually happens if the venue has low quality or old technology) LEDs that are poorly dimmed.
If you are a wedding photographer, you know this. Sometimes, you need to control your lights’ output. With Strobes, you typically do that with a remote mounted on the camera. With LEDs, you use an App.
The Zhiyun app lets you turn the brightness up or down, and control the temperature. It also gives you the option to set the lights to zero brightness. This is extremely useful to save battery when the lights are not in use. You can place the lights, turn them on, and then set them to zero power until you need them.
PRO TIP: If you are indeed using an app to control the lights, make sure you set your phone to exclude the app from power management. It will reconnect to the x100s faster this way
The Zhiyun Molus x100 Pro and Combo kits come with an attachable battery. (The “bare “standard” kit has no battery, so get one of the other kits ). This is a medium-sized battery that would last about 30 minutes on full power. Of course, if you are only using 50% brightness, it would last an hour.
If most of your ceremonies last this long, you are good. But if you want more power (or more time), the Zhiyun x100 takes USBC power, which means you can use a power bank to power your wedding lights.
The setup that works for me is using the Tether Tools PD battery ($179.99) strapped to the light stand. This battery can deliver 100W continuously so that I can use the lights at full power. It is slim in shape so I can put a couple of those in my bag. Lastly, the capacity on this battery is 100 Watts, so at full power (which is also 100 watts), it adds a full hour of runtime to my kit. That puts the total runtime at 90 minutes. Now, if your wedding ceremony lasts over 90 minutes, you probably have other things to worry about, like getting hydrated. Just kidding. You can swap batteries if needed.
I started my migration from strobes to LED lights for wedding photography almost a year ago, and I could not be happier. Using a light that is relatively tiny, needs no cables, and never fails to trigger is a big improvement. The only issue that I had was power, and that was solved with the x100 delivering 100 watts of continuous lights. If I am counting advantages vs. strobes, let me also add temperature control and videography fellowship to the mix.
The move costs about $500 per unit (light + extra battery) and is well worth it. I would love to know if you are considering using LEDs for your wedding photography.
