A ladder is often essential
What a photographer needs to do the job is sometimes far from obvious.
The tools of a professional
Articles Tagged with old cameras
A surfeit of features
No one uses them all
Digital cameras, like calculators, have an immense menu of features. It’s certainly rare, and possibly unknown, for anyone to use them all. Why have them, then?
Tools shape the artist
A choice of camera is unexpectedly important
Our photographic consultant finds that the camera he uses can have an unsubtle effect on the pictures he takes.
The postures of photography
Conforming to the machine
Our photographer notices how a new technology forces our bodies into new positions.
Why an f-stop?
It’s all the astronomers’ fault
Our photographic consultant is reminded how complicated things are for beginners, no matter how straightforward it all seems to the professionals.
How big is a picture?
Returning to the Brownie format
The photographs that came out of this Kodak Brownie camera from the 1930s may be the best size ever found.
Simplified lightning
The rise and fall of the flashbulb
Our photographer illustrates the evolution of technology through something once ubiquitous, now obsolete.
Making it easy makes it hard
Simplicity is good, but not always
Photography can seem very complicated, so cameras made for non-experts are often highly simplified. This can make them difficult to use.
Ends and means
Or, strategy and tactics in photography (and elsewhere)
You have many tasks, large and small, difficult and otherwise. For each one you have to choose a way to get it done. A problem arises when you find such a wonderful means that you forget the end.
Instant gratification in the Swinging Sixties
A darkroom inside the camera
A remarkable mid-century invention allowed a photographer to produce pictures almost immediately, a bit of magic that is rarely matched even by current digital cameras.