Joda border, South Sudan

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese refugees are returning home from neighbouring Sudan, where violence erupted last month

Photograph: Sam Mednick/AP

It doesn’t matter how many variables you match, when you pit creatives against one another, the results will invariably be distinct. In this video, five photographers all shoot the same models in the same location, and the results are exactly that: distinct.

I have been on a number of photography trips at this point and often with a lot of other photographers. Many of the pre-release camera press trips see you on a bus with many other photographers and the subject matter for this video happens. I have been on location with more than 20 photographers all holding the same equipment I am, looking to shoot the same subjects. And yet, when the announcements land the reviews filter out, I will visit each of the attendees’ reviews and see that our images differ drastically.

This really is the beauty of our craft. 20 or more professional photographers, all holding the same camera, in the same location, at the same time, and the results are not all just some homogenous mega-set of photographs that could be a part of anyone’s work. Each photographer has a vision for what they want to create and pursues it. And that’s what we see here in Irene Rudnyk’s video: five talented photographers baking their own cakes with the same ingredients. Who do you think did the best?

This isn’t ancient history. We only have to go back to around 2015, say, the year when the Nikon D7200 was launched and perhaps the high water mark of beginner and enthusiast photography. The Nikon APS-C lens range was extensive and mostly inexpensive and the Canon APS-C DSLR scene was equally vigorous.

The best cameras for beginners were APS-C models back then, as were most of the best cameras for enthusiasts.

Sure, professionals would be looking at the best full frame cameras instead, but they were much more expensive and APS-C cameras were, for hobbyists, just as versatile and backed up by just as many lenses. You could build a serious system around an APS-C camera.

And then mirrorless happened.

Did mirrorless cameras kill APS-C?

Not directly, but they did change the way the two biggest makers approached the market. Sure, they embraced mirrorless technology and launched APS-C mirrorless cameras to take over from their old-tech DSLR models.

But did they launch proper ‘systems’ to go with them? Canon’s EOS M range looks largely dead in the water today and has barely a dozen native EF-M lenses – compare that with the dozens available for its EF-S DSLR cameras. Replacing the EOS M series, Canon’s RF-S cameras (including the new $600 EOS R100) have even fewer lenses made specifically for this smaller format, and it doesn’t look as if there will ever be anything like the optical diversity for these APS-C cameras that we once took for granted.

Things are no better at Nikon. Like Canon, it’s launched its own APS-C (DX) format mirrorless cameras, but barely a handful of native Nikkor Z DX lenses to go with them.

Yes, both sets of cameras can use full-frame lenses from the larger full-frame cameras in their respective ranges, but that doesn’t help with standard and wide-angle lens choice. It’s also an expensive workaround.

These two companies were once the biggest names in beginner/enthusiast APS-C camera market, but in a few short years their APS-C systems have effectively been left to wither away. And what have they been replaced with? Cameras, yes, systems, no. When there are as many cameras in an interchangeable lens system as there are lenses, something’s clearly wrong.

Of course, cameras like the Canon EOS R50 and R10, the Nikon Z50 and Z fc, do give new users a first step into the Canon RF and Nikon Z camera systems, and if they later upgrade to a full frame model, then all these lens problems go away. 

And if that’s actually the plan, it’s a pretty cynical one.

Hurrah for Fujifilm and Sony (and Pentax)

At least Fujifilm and Sony still take APS-C seriously (and a shout out to Pentax, too). Fujifilm is clearly committed to its APS-C lens system, and the same goes for Sony. It’s true that Sony’s full frame cameras and lenses get the lion’s share of development these days, but Sony still plugs away with its APS-C system with occasional camera and lens launches that continue to make this a convincing and complete camera system for those who don’t want to go full frame.

But let’s just go back to 2015, when you could get a decent APS-C beginner DSLR for around $500/£400 and know that there were dozens of lenses out there to go with it and at sensible prices. What wouldn’t we give to have those days back?

Best budget DSLRs in 2023
Best cheap mirrorless cameras

Yes, that’s right. A photography composite isn’t a photograph. It never was. We were just calling it that for most of history. We’ve never called a bunch of paintings put together a single painting: we called it a collage. Other art forms are similar in that it’s impossible to combine a bunch of things to form a single unit. We can’t do that with pottery, woodworking, drawing, glass blowing, etc. A finalized plate of food is called a dish and only really becomes a dish after processing and combining several things together. When different songs are combined, they’re labeled as remixes to signify that it’s different from the original. So why isn’t it that way for photographers? Well, there’s a lot that goes into the making of a photograph.

To put it bluntly, compositors, for years, have tried to market themselves as photographers and sometimes fail at it. So that could be a part of it. But let’s delve into the more realistic answers.

Moment

When you’re taking a photograph, the moment is a massive part of it. In fact, it’s probably the most essential part of storytelling. You’re sometimes capturing a moment. An example of this is a bird catching some prey. Another fantastic moment is the viral image that went around during the Black Lives Matter protests. These specifically have important moments that are real, organic, and that have actually happened.

Let’s put this into more context. If you took the nicely dressed woman in the viral image along with the cops out of the scene that they’re in, the moment would be gone. The reason why is that we’re clearly in a particular place that makes the moment happen. Indeed, the act of making Photoshop composites ruins the moment.

When you create those images using AI, it’s not making a moment. It’s simply creating something based on the cues you’re giving it from your imagination. Those photos genuinely lack a real, human moment.

Subject

With Photoshop composites, there’s usually a subject or a few of them. But those subjects often also have organic importance to the rest of the scene. They can be seen as collaborators. A portrait subject can be molded by you easily into whatever pose you want, or they can improvise. The clouds in the sky can do whatever they want when you’re shooting a landscape. Sometimes, they might cover the sun, while at other times, they’ll let it shine through. You can organically get this with photography but not with Photoshop composites.

Gear

A large number of photographers say that gear doesn’t matter in photography. But it indeed does. I can’t capture the moment that a runner crosses the finish line in the same way with an a9 series camera that I can with a large format camera. The gear dictates how you shoot. This, in turn, can affect the moment, the way the subject is perceived and can affect how the photographer thinks.

Like it or not, the gear really matters here. And if you’re making Photoshop composites, the equipment doesn’t really matter. This is because you’re simply pulling photos from a ton of places and then working with them to create a collage.

Some cameras from OM System and Panasonic have a feature called Live Composite. I’ve used it many times to photograph stars above NYC. In this case, you’re making a composite; but there’s a specific creative vision that’s happening live in front of you in-camera. You’re arguably capturing a ton of moments and having the camera blend them together. This is the creation of a photograph rather than a photoshop composite.

The Importance of the Photographer

The photographer’s creative vision is very important to making a photograph. But the photographer’s creative vision disappears when you’re making a photoshop composite. At that point, you’re not shooting a photograph. You’re blending a bunch of stuff together to make a composite. A great example of this are all the photos we see of the stars in the sky above places in the desert or the city.

With a composite, there’s a creative vision, but it’s being falsely created. With that said, lots of astrophotography and star trails are composites done in photoshop or otherwise using different software. They’re not photographs. Crazy, right? The same applies to sky replacement, background replacement, etc. You’re making a composite, and not a photograph.

A: Keep it simple! Remember, you are the star of the show, not your clothing. Choose outfits that fit well and avoid tight tops or jackets that squeeze you. Loose blouses or shirts don’t translate well in headshots, so opt for tailored clothing. Avoid patterns that are too large or distracting. Small, appropriate jewelry is fine, but avoid big earrings and necklaces unless they are part of your personal brand. Stick to simple, neutral colors and avoid overly bright shirts. Pay attention to your collar choice—crisp collars look great, while loose collars can give a more casual or sloppy appearance. If you wear a tie, make sure it’s straight.

The Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki met the love of his life, Aoki Yoko, in Tokyo in 1968 at the advertising agency at which they both worked. After a three-year romance, they married and in celebration Araki published his first book, Sentimental Journey. The pictures in the book – including this shot of Yoko on a dreamy boat trip with her lover – were a startlingly intimate portrait of their early relationship and their wedding and honeymoon. Araki called his practice I-photography, referencing the Japanese tradition of the confessional I-novel. Though his camera dwelt on his wife and muse, it was Araki’s way of seeing, his insider’s vantage, that the viewer was invited to share.

Araki, now 83, subsequently published dozens of books and became infamous for his erotic pictures, in particular his obsessive and sometimes disturbing interest in kinbaku, or rope bondage. His series about Yoko – included in a New York exhibition, Love Songs, conceived as a compilation gifted to a lover – suggests a more tender kind of looking. “It is thanks to Yoko that I became a photographer,” Araki always says.

Yoko died of ovarian cancer in 1990, and her husband published Winter Journey as a companion volume to the first book, chronicling with equal honesty his wife’s illness and her death. A third series of pictures, Sentimental Sky, was an attempt to photograph Yoko’s absence in their apartment and in his life. In the context of that later work, this image also takes on a kind ghostly quality, prefiguring the pictures Araki took of his wife adrift in her flower-filled coffin. Looking back at this image, he has noted the ways in which it has taken on a life of its own: “It is like crossing the Sanzu River in the afterlife, isn’t it? And there’s kind of a foetal look to it. It’s mysterious – [though] I didn’t really mean to be like that…”

• Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy is at the International Center of Photography, New York, from 2 June to 11 September

ROTTERDAM – Claude Sawyer loves country music.

Sawyer is one of our most prolific photographers at Nippertown, and not surprisingly, he photographs a lot of country concerts for our online magazine. He covers other genres, too, as he simply loves shooting from the pit. Over the years, he’s covered a litany of exceptional national and local musicians and photographs for WGNA, a local country radio station.

He even plays guitar and sings, which brought him to purchase a guitar a while back for his personal use. What he didn’t anticipate was that guitar ended up not being a good fit for his playing style. The beautiful instrument sat in his house waiting for its mission to be envisioned and actualized by Sawyer.

Sawyer re-imagined the guitar covered in signatures by country artists who visit the Capital Region and auction it off to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

“The idea just came to me that I could really help St. Jude. The WGNA radio-a-thon raffles off a guitar an hour signed by one artist for St. Jude, and it sparked the idea,” Sawyer mused.

St. Jude is often on Sawyer’s mind and heart. A dear friend and colleague, Don DeMarco, lost his then 12-year-old son to cancer. “I got to watch Tyler DeMarco grow, play little league, and then battle cancer,” he shared. “St. Jude did a lot to support them, and I wanted to give back.”

DeMarco’s son Tyler was a fixture in Rotterdam on the baseball field, so much so that the local Little League retired his number after his passing. His family and our community continue to celebrate his spirit and life to this day through work at the Tyler DeMarco Foundation.

St. Jude is world known for its advances in cancer treatment for children – and its policy that no one is turned away due to inability to pay. Sawyer was so impressed by them; he was inspired to find a way to help them further their goals.

“When I bought this guitar, I really wanted it. The instrument is beautiful. But when I started to play it, something didn’t feel right,” he recalled. He soon recognized that the guitar’s true mission was outside his hands.

The guitar’s purpose was instead in the hands of dozens of musicians who have come to sign it. When Sawyer covers a concert, he requests the artist to sign the guitar. Often this involves Sawyer dropping the guitar off to a publicist with a Sharpie, but sometimes he also gets to meet the artists. That was never the goal, as Sawyer was simply hoping for a donated signature to benefit the cause.

“So far, I have 16 artists’ signatures, and I’m hopeful about this summer adding more to it, especially as the artists roll through SPAC,” Sawyer remarked. Hardy signed it, as has Cody Johnson, Dalton Dover, Morgan Wade, and others.

“I like all kinds of music, but I love country, so it’s a real kick to do this themed guitar,” Sawyer noted. He’s also considering similar projects themed around other genres in the future.

Sawyer’s music photography is just one of many hobbies that keep him busy. He also photographs sports and provides professional headshots, runs a DJ business, and closest to his heart is his role as father to his boys.

“I love going to their baseball games,” he admits. While his own kids have been blessed with good health, Sawyer has a big heart for children and an appreciation for St. Jude.

“I get to shoot so many shows and realized I have an opportunity to do some good here. I love concert photography, and I do it for fun. I don’t need it to put food on the table, so that frees me up a bit,” Sawyer reflected. “Jim (Gilbert) was the first and only concert photographer to respond to me a few years back when I reached out to a bunch of people to learn the ropes. I love Jim for his honest and non-competitive response.”

“It’s fun. I’m building a portfolio, and I attend concerts with Blythe, my partner.” Sawyer and his partner have attended over 80 concerts, and he’s exceeded 250. As for photography, Sawyer reports, “I’m also finding it visually interesting.” Sawyer’s photographs are getting him some attention, too, as others experience the visual interest. He was recently asked by Boz Scaggs to photograph the band for the day.

Sawyer’s guitar project will keep him busy through the fall, and he hopes to have added many more signatures by national acts through the summer and turning weather.

He teased, “Stay tuned for the auction process. I’m aiming for December.” The guitar without signatures is worth $500, so with signatures, he is hoping to raise quite a bit more than that for St. Jude.

Until then, fans can enjoy Sawyer’s photos on Nippertown — and anticipate the final collection of signatures on guitar. We plan to follow Sawyer’s progress, so keep in touch with Nippertown to learn how you can bid on the guitar and support St. Jude as well.

Olympia has been home to many professional photographers over the decades. One of the leading commercial photographers in the mid-20th century was Merle Junk. From snapshots of events and buildings to weddings and family portraits, his work offers a window into history, bridging the past and present.

Merle Junk Early Life

Merle Pinkerton Junk was born on June 2, 1899 in Fairfax, Iowa to James Junk (1848-1936) and Lucretia Loomis Junk (1853-1944), the youngest of six children. The family soon moved from their farm in Iowa to Montesano, Washington before relocating to Olympia in 1908.

Junk attended Lincoln School, even making the third-grade honor roll in Miss Scroggs’ class. As a teenager, he was active in the YMCA and Christian Endeavor at the United Churches where he remained an active member the rest of his life. Senior class treasurer, Junk graduated from Olympia High School in 1918. His nickname in the yearbook was “Just Junk.”

Then Junk joined the Student Army Training Corps (now ROTC), and studied mechanical engineering at Washington State University, hoping to build bridges. After two years, he changed his mind and became district manager for Olympia’s Buckeye Extract Company in Aberdeen.

In September 1923 he married Marjorie Cook (1901-1997) of Tumwater, also an OHS graduate and WSU student. The couple had three sons: Richard, Willard and Robert. Marjorie was active with the PTA, Daughters of the Pioneers and United Churches.  

Becoming a Historic Olympia Photographer

Moving back to Olympia around 1924, Junk first worked as proprietor of the E & H Auto Paint Shop. In July 1925 he opened The Picture Shop with Ralph Haycox, who had owned the paint store, at 621 Capitol Way. This shop concentrated on cameras, photography and picture frames. They also sold gifts.

This business moved to the new Security Building (203 E Fourth Avenue). In July 1930, Junk partnered with Ralph Haycox and Paul Woods to form the Olympia Office Supply Company in the same space. Overseeing it as president, the store continued to offer commercial photography and photo developing, but in addition marketed commercial stationery and office furnishings.

In 1931, Junk founded Silvertone Studios (1067 Capitol Way). Quickly renamed Silvertone Photo Co., the business eventually moved and became the Merle Junk Photo and Litho Company, or simply Merle Junk Photos (117 Legion Way West). Junk employed other photographers, including William McNeil and George Bradley, in the 1950s.

Junk’s work was highly regarded. Describing his September 1932 photos of the “Olympia Model Home,” the Daily Olympian celebrated that: “Junk specializes in photography used to exploit the beauties of property, real or otherwise. Junk’s photography, well known in Olympia, has reached a perfection seldom, if ever, surpassed for use in advertising mediums.”

Over the years he photographed portraits, groups, clubs and weddings. He was also the official photographer for the Olympia school district, taking photos of students for over 30 years. Several state agencies contracted him to document things such as the construction of I-5, earthquake damage to state buildings and tourism promotion.

Through this and work for the Daily Olympian, Junk captured images of local events and places. Sometimes the events were tragic, like the Olympia Regional Airport’s first fatal crash in 1936 and the burning of the Buchanan Lumber Mill on West Bay Drive in 1935. He also photographed happier events such as club meetings and special events like the 1947 Dairy Maid of the West competition or Mayor Amanda Smith slicing a cake to celebrate Olympia’s centennial of its incorporation in 1959.

Some of his work was published to promote the Olympia area, including a 1959 Chamber of Commerce tourist brochure. A picture he took of the capitol was put on a Royal Stafford Bone China souvenir cup and saucer – and other matching pieces – designed by Dolores Merrill that was sold at Talcotts in the 1952.

Merle Junk Was Active in Olympia Clubs

Junk was active in Olympia clubs. He was the first president of the Active Club when it formed in 1925 and continued to serve as trustee for many years. The Active Club sponsored Boy Scout Troop 31 when it started in 1932. Scoutmaster for many years, Junk was also neighborhood, Olympia district, and Thurston County district chairs for the scouts.

Junk was elected president of the Lions Club in 1953 and was a member of the Toastmasters Club, Red Cross, YMCA, and Elks. He also served on the Retail Board and local United Way board.

During the 1950s to the early 1970s, Junk headed the committee that handed out free ice cream and movie tickets to children at the end of the annual Pet Parade. He also regularly awarded an 8-inch-by-10-inch photo of the winning child and their dog in the best dressed large dog category.

Merle Junk: Later Years

In 1967 Junk sold his business to Dean Palmer of Shelton. Renamed Dean and Merle Photography, he stayed on as a production advisor until retiring. He passed away on September 16, 1981. Around 2,000 of his photos eventually became part of the Susan Parish Collection at the Washington State Archives.

While he did not become an engineer, during his lifetime Junk built bridges through his photos, bringing people together. His historic photos recorded treasured family images, past events and places. “In the years to come,” ran a holiday ad for his studio in 1964, a family photograph “will be one of your most prized possessions.” It was after all, as his slogan went, “The gift only you can give.”

These Americans #44
Photo: Will Vogt

The people we see in Will Vogt’s These Americans are more than affluent. They are the old Eastern aristocracy, of F.R. Tripler & Co. blazers and big unruly dogs named for alcoholic spirits (Brandy, Whiskey) and summers in Newport. Vogt grew up in this world, on the Philadelphia Main Line, and starting in 1969, when he was 17, he took a seemingly endless number of pictures among his friends, associates, and neighbors. (He later moved to Texas, and many of the pictures in These Americans were made there.) Perhaps because he was of the same class as they, his subjects betray no sense that he was more than a snapshot photographer; there was zero fear of public exposure. “People wanted to be photographed,” Vogt says today, “’cause they weren’t afraid where it was going to go. There was no instant dump onto your social media and Oh, well I don’t think I want that.” The best of the pictures went into albums that Vogt kept at home, and they weren’t any kind of a secret. “My biggest complaint was people would say, ‘Goddamn, you take all these pictures. Where are they? When do I get to see ’em?’ And I would say, ‘You come over to my house and flip through these albums, and you can look at ’em to your heart’s content.’”

These Americans, just out from Schilt Publishing with an introduction by Jay McInerney, draws from that 70,000-frame body of work. The selection runs through 1996, falling heavily on the 1980s, and the unself-consciousness on view is astounding. Everyone is at ease in this milieu, whether backstage at a wedding or gathered around the bar or the pool. Especially in the earlier photos, the old preppies are always smoking, of course. There are no famous faces on view save one — George H.W. Bush, who pops up briefly in a sport shirt. (A few frames, though not many, are outré: some coke, a couple of streakers.) It’s implied that most of these subjects regarded Vogt as just a friend with a hobby, on the fringes at family-and-friends gatherings. It didn’t hurt that he usually worked with nothing more than a modest point-and-shoot camera.

These days, the world of dynastic wealth — while still extant — is both diminished and changed. Distinctive clothes and habits that once seemed like Just the Way We Live are now codified as “American preppy style,” and outsiders peer into the clubhouse as they once could not. (Not to mention that the old attitude of “your name should appear in print only at birth, marriage, and death” seems quaint in the age of the influencer.) Was Vogt consciously looking to document that world before it slipped away, or was he just having fun taking pictures of his own crowd? “Well, I think a little bit of both,” he says. But the more he talks about his intent, it seems to have been less toward the historical record and more toward simple, personal aide-memoire. “I was influenced by my mother, and she took pictures in the ’50s and ’60s. I mean, she wasn’t a photographer — she was, you know, a housewife that took pictures. That’s what people did. And more importantly, she put ’em in albums. So many people take all these pictures and they’re in desk drawers, or under the bed or in the closet.”

The title — as well as the book’s horizontal format and cover typography — makes obvious reference to Robert Frank’s The Americans, the landmark 1959 collection that busted open so many photographic conventions. (Vogt says that he greatly admires Frank’s work, and also adds, ruefully, that he should have collected it back when it was a lot cheaper.) Although the visual milieu here is different, Vogt, like his predecessor, declines to identify who everyone is. “We thought about it, and we really want the pictures to speak for themselves,” Vogt says. “We kind of like the mystery.” There are no captions at all in Vogt’s book, although he says that a future exhibition might include some very minimal ones.

That said, he was a little more forthcoming when I asked him about one guy who appears more than once in the book. “He was a very interesting family friend who was very wayward, a professional inheritor who wasn’t any good at it. Married a couple of times, but had no children. And he died way too young, because he didn’t take care of himself.” He was, Vogt suggests, that person who just always turned up, and you yourself may have dozens of photographs of someone a little like him on your phone or in your drawers and albums; I certainly do. “He was, you know, kind of our class clown, on the tip of everybody’s tongue. People loved him. So this book is somewhat dedicated to him, kind of.”