Photography is the art of the capture. If you love photography, you love that hunt, the planning and the final capture of an image. When you return from your vacation, exposed film rolls in hand or memory cards full, the question becomes what you do with all these images?  What do you do upon returning home?

I have just come back from a trip to Cambodia, and I am sharing what I have learned and a few of the images of the five rolls I took, on this blog. As I finish developing the five rolls, I found myself in the darkroom selecting and making some prints. When I print images from a vacation, I am looking to select the images that help tell the story of our visit. Images that help define a place and the people who live there. 

Out of the 180 film images I captured, I will select 20-30 images to print. I will also select some of the 500 digital images I have taken to get printed as well.  In the end I will have between 30-50 images that will be my definition of the trip.  But once this is done then what?  

The first thing to do is print, it does not matter how.  It could be in a darkroom, on a home printer or taking the images to a professional printer. The size of the prints are not important but the fact that you do print is vital. There is something special about holding the two dimensional image in your hand.  

But then what? What do you do with the images when finally made?  Here, I hope to give you some ideas that you might not have thought about.  

The Photo Box:
This is one of my favorite methods to use recently.  The idea is to purchase a box, roughly the size of the prints you are going to make, and store the images in there. Again you can add mementos such as tickets and the like within the box.  Here, leaving a bit of room at the bottom of the image to write a bit about it would help or you can just write in the back.

A few words of advice on this system.  First, dry the images again. Because they are loose in the box this is less of an issue but still a good practice to get into.  Second, keep the boxes small.  These need to be stored after all.  A small box, about an inch deep will store plenty of images and still be easy to keep.  

Hanging on a Wall:
This is really the best way to preserve and show your images.  The problem is that one runs out of wall space rather quickly.  I like to keep this for the absolute best images and the one that will bring to mind the memories of that trip.  

Again I suggest that the image be dried as explained above before putting behind glass.  Second, if the image will be in direct sun light, I suggest putting it behind treated glass which helps reduce the fading that will occur.  If out of the direct sunlight this is not needed.  Professionals will seal the image into the frame with humidity proof tape. This is done in a dry environment to prevent condensation when the temperature drops. You can do the same thing at home, or if the frame is cheap, let it breath through he gaps in the back of the frame.  

Gifting:
This is one of my favorite things to do.  I will select an image that I really like, print it up in the darkroom.  After allowing it to dry, I will write a special note on the back and give it to a friend.  Sometimes I will frame it but other times I will leave it for them to do anything they wish to it.

The fact is that in today's digital world, few people hold photographs anymore.  Giving them a picture of something memorable on the trip, is something that few people get the chance to enjoy.  I explain that there is no need to hang it or do anything with it other than look at it and enjoy it.  Not everyone has the same taste so they may want to feel safe turning it into a bookmark (you can even print it with that in mind).  

Christmas cards are a wonderful time to do this.  To send a unique photograph to a few close family or friends is a great way to show you care. 

The mixing of religions, cultures and philosophies has defined Cambodia and its people. The constant wars with neighboring states as well as countries that few Cambodian's knew existed, helped shape the art and attitude of its people.  When I first arrived, I took everything that I saw for granted, as if it was the singular culture of the region. As I began to look closer, and compare what I was seeing with my other travels, I was able to see the pattern for its individual weaves. From the influence of India and China, due to the Silk Road passing through there, to the modern impact of imperialism, communism and democratic ideology.

The shot above was captured with my Nikon F2 using HP5+ at an exposure index of 200. It is a shot inside the famous Angkor Was temple but it is a bit of a "tall tale".  The reality is that this place is crawling with tourists who do not respect the posted signs so they are literally climbing the walls. Here I managed to find a family empty corridor and beside the corridor was this scene. I captured a few versions of it, some with my sons leg in it and other annoying intrusions. So if you plan a trip, accept the tourists as part of the experience.  

Cambodia is about rocks, trees and people (both local and tourists). It has had its share of rough history, the killing fields we visited I did not take pictures of, but it has evolved into a poor but wonderful country.  Angelina is revered there, not because of her humanitarian efforts, but because she helped put Cambodia on the map. 

Shoot pictures of rocks on film is easy. These temples beg for B&W conversion (if shooting digital) or B&W film.  It is all about texture with little color to add much if anything to a composition.  The trees are a different matter.  Lush greens mixed with wonderful brown bark give you some great compositional elements if shooting in color. So I would recommend either taking B&W and Color film or also taking a digital camera. 

So what is the best film to capture the human spirit?  Nothing can, but your outlook as a photographer should change. You are there not to highlight the differences between your home and Cambodia, but rather the similarities across cultures, to shoot the very things that make us all human.

Ah, yes the tourist. You will find a few of them. If you want to avoid them, travel outside of Siam Reap, where you will find some amazing temples, locals and monkeys, but few if any tourists. But if you embrace the tourist as a vital part of the new Cambodia economy, then they become a part of the story. Why tell the story of ancient Cambodia alone? Why not put it into modern context? 

Hit rate, or the number of good shots versus missed shots. Simple concept but a much more nuanced philosophy when you dig down into it. What determines what is a "hit" versus a "miss"? Does a higher percentage of "hits" mean that you are a better photographer? Is it binary, in other words, a hit or a miss and nothing in-between? If so, does this make all "hits" equal?  How can a professional photographer go out on a shoot and be sure they will get a "hit"?

As I started in photography I was disappointed to see that I only had a 5-10% "hit" rate. As I learned more about photography, I realized that after several thousand images I did not have a single "hit".  What I thought were "hits" did not deserve to see the light of day.  Does that sound harsh? If so, good..it should.

The only person who should determine if a photograph is a "hit" or a "miss" is the photographer, and there is the problem. We are too forgiving of our photographs so we tend to see more "hits" then we have. A good photographer will filter their images several times before having a set of "hits". 

For example, if a good photographer goes out and shoots 500 images during a weekend shoot, they may set the images aside for a few days before going through for the first selection process.  This is simply cutting those that are out of focus, accidental shutter releases, movement of the subject and so forth. Once these are filtered out, the remaining images will be gone through much slower. They may be post processed to ensure that the images are straight, cropped properly and that shadow detail is visible. The photographer will select the best from these.  

At the end of this process the photographer might have 25 images selected as the best. Then the photographer will take one more pass through them, and this is what most of us fail to do. In this final pass, the photographer is purposefully taking the 25 images down to one or two images. These will be the "hits" of the weekend.

After several weekends the photographer will pull together 25-30 "hits" and will go through them, selecting the best one or two to include in their portfolio.  So out of several thousand images, the good photographer will add a couple of images to their portfolio at best. 

So for a good photographer, there are different levels of "hits", from his top shots of a weekend, to the stop shots of several months of work. The difference between a good portfolio and a poor one has less to do with the skill of the photographer and more to do with the editing down of the images. 

So how is it that a professional photographer can go out on a shoot and know that they will capture something for their client?  Simple, they do two things that most novice photographers fail to do.  The first is that, through experience, they have a series of "go to" shots that work. They know the lighting, the position they want their subject, the depth of field and the angle of the shot. A good photographer will have 15-20 of these "go to" shots that they know will work for most clients.  

The second thing they do, is that they think though the shoot.  They come up with ideas that they want to try, not just one or two but a dozen or more.  Of this dozen ideas they hope to find one or two that work.  So between their new ideas and their "go to" shots they should have six or seven "hits" for their client.  

This sounds easy, but it is not. It requires experience, hard work and a keen understanding of the clients taste.  I could not do this for a living!  But I can learn from this process and apply some of these things to my own photography.  Can I seek out some additional "go to" shots? Sure can.  Can I be more brutal with my own images?  Sure can.  

A high hit rate might mean that you are a good photographer or it could mean that you are not being selective enough.  

We have just returned from a week in Cambodia, and I must admit that the trip was an eye opener on a great many levels.  

On a familial level, and arguably the most important, the family bonded wonderfully well when internet was curtailed. We all had a wonderful time together and bonded more than I had hoped.

On a historical level, it was astounding to see a culture of people, so battered through war and violence, able to create such magnificent temples.

On a human side, I fear that the lack of justice for so many over the Khmer Rouge atrocities will only invite others to try the same.

On a photographic side, I only shot five rolls of film!?!? I was not trying to shoot less nor was I short of film. Why, during a trip to one of the wonders of the world, did I only shoot five simple rolls of film? Oh sure, I had my Leica ME with me and shot about 500 shots with it, but usually I shoot more film than digital.  Film for me are shots that I want to keep, memories I will enjoy reliving during development and darkroom printing, while digital is a chance to catch something complex that will require a bit of digital post processing to replicate what I see. 

So, considering this site is mostly for my photography friends, let me dive into the photographic side of things. This trip I took my Nikon F2, Leica ME and my iPhone 6. These all play a roll in my photographic plan of attack. Lets start with the Nikon F2, I went with this camera because on my last trip to Italy & Greece I took my OM-1, so I opted for the F2. No other reason, I try to take different cameras on different trips as it helps create memories of using that camera in that place.

For the digital I went with the Leica but it was a tough call.  I wanted to take my Nikon D800 but it is summer and I knew it would be hot....and it was VERY hot.  So, lugging around a second large SLR body was not something that appealed to me. I am glad I went with the Leica as I was able to do some people shots that the DSLR would have not been able to capture.

The iPhone is used for selfies, we do not do that too often but do like the occasionally family selfie, or to get a group shot where I will give the phone over to someone to grab our picture.  Everyone knows how to work a iPhone but they are not very good with any other kind of camera!  Finally I like the simple video capability to take short videos of the family.  I keep this to 30 seconds or so, in order to keep the file sizes reasonable as well as to avoid making videos that no one ever watches.  I find 15-30 seconds is about perfect.

​I tried some different approaches to my film shooting, some worked others did not. I am developing the film now, with three rolls done and two more to go, and while that is drying I am post processing my digital images. The amazing rock architecture of the ancient temples cries out for B&W conversion, which gives me hope that some of my images on film came out well. 

I will be posting more images over the coming weeks which will include some street shooting, portraits, videos and a few shots of monkeys....ok I will give you a sneak peak on the monkey shots...got to love monkeys!

I am a massive fan of B&W images, probably why I love film so much. From my perspective, digital B&W can only approximate the beauty of film, but that is the subject for another blog with much more detail. Today I just wanted to focus on why I sometimes do choose to photograph in color.

First, why I took this shot this way....
Above are two, exactly the same images taken in London with a Nikon D800. It was a typical winter day in London which means cloudy and wet. I am standing on a bank of the Thames, on a set of stairs that lead up to Westminster Bridge.  I like this vantage point because you can just get people's faces but avoid distracting clothing. If I go farther down the stairs, I would get no people, just the bridge and tower. 

What I wanted to capture was the cloud cover, let me explain. For a photographer, there are different types of clouds. There are white fluffy clouds that are dispersed through the blue sky that helps the sky to really jump out. There is the flat gray clouds without texture, which is excellent for portrait photography as it gives the best light I have ever seen but it gives a very dull backdrop.  Then you have the storm clouds, these can fill an image with tension as we naturally want to get away from it. And finally you have the well textured set of clouds. These provide an interesting background which can really help balance out a landscape image. This, of course, were the clouds I saw that morning in London.

I chose an aperture of f/8 as this is the sweet spot of the lens, and boosted the ISO to 400 to ensure that I would have a fast shutter speed (in this case 1/1000 of a second).  When shooting moving people, with a Nikon D800 I prefer very fast shutter speeds (over 1/250th of a second) which helps eliminate blur caused by movement, either the subject or my own. 

I waited to ensure no busses or trucks were crossing the bridge and captured the image above. I shot the same scene twice, to help eliminate the possibility of having some odd facial expression from a passerby.  I find that two images, when taking shots of multiple people, helps you filter out and odd face or movement that one of the people created. 

Why some images only work in color?
There are images we have all taken with striking color. This visual element can make an image come together. When this happens we use color as a compositional tool, I wrote about this HERE and it can be a powerful tool.  


The Selection of Color vs B&W
I must say that this image works both in color and B&W. I like the contrast captured in the B&W image but I also like the gold and green in the color photograph.  So when an image can work either in B&W or in Color I will typically choose B&W.  

Why som 

The other day I was stopping by Scott Kelby's blog when I saw an interesting article that he wrote about the five stages of photography that we all go through.  I wont paraphrase what he wrote and will suggest that you read the entire thing if interested.  

The concept that we all go through different stages of photography, while probably completely incorrect, is interesting to contemplate. I do believe that many people follow a similar creative path as they develop (forgive the pun) their artistic side. I thought I would share my stages and where I am at in my own artistic path.

Stage 1: Buying the Camera
I needed a hobby I could take with me on our many international moves. I tried a variety of options and tripped over photography when our family camera, a digital point and shoot at the time, needed to be upgraded. I found "professional" digital cameras for a decent price. I kept looking, and my interest kept growing and I ended up purchasing a Nikon D300 over the internet while living in Argentina. I had it shipped to my mother's house and picked it up on my next trip.  

During the wonderful wait, I tried to learn as much as I could over the internet. I learned about the camera, fundamentals of photography and the like. Sort of like a photography school which requires you to learn the basics before you even touch a camera. This forced separation, allowed me to learn as much as I could from all kinds of sources on line. I found out that I needed Lightroom, I should shoot in RAW and I definitely wanted to back up. I understood DOF but I had no clue how to use it artistically.  

When I finally picked up the camera, months later, I knew how to work it and I began running around taking pictures of anything. The weight, size and feel of the camera made me feel knowledgeable. My pictures were crap but I celebrated the small improvements I was seeing.

Stage 3:  Bigger & Faster is Better
I need better glass. I still love the zooms and dream of the Nikon Trinity. These three fast lenses, 12-24mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm was a great deal of money to spend on glass but they would be lenses I could use for decades to come.  So I saved and bought all three.

I was waiting for a Full Frame camera, as this would allow me to take advantage of that wide angle lens and not worry about the cropping factor.  This would make me a more serious photographer.  When the Nikon D800 came out I knew I had to have it. I saved and bought it.  

I went out and shot with this professional beast of a camera and realized how terrible my photographs were.  My fundamentals were sloppy and the results were crap.  I bought Photoshop to help take my photography to the next level.  I bought classes at Kelby Training and I began taking better pictures.  

My images were beginning to look like the shots I found on the internet. I began seeing my pictures being selected as the weekly winner on the Photography Forum I was still posting to.  I knew how to "bring out the best" in my images, how to hide the evidence of my post processing and what to choose as subject matter to get the most number of likes. 

I was using a tripod, filters and long shutter speeds.  I abandoned HDR and was now looking for that single image the captured the light and color that are so popular online. I was using remote triggers and trying star photography, time lapse and macro lenses. 

Stage 5: Art is Simple....Good Art is Divine
Now I am in my fifth stage of my artistic path. I have plenty of camera gear because I love cameras and have begun collecting them. I understand that my passion for film photographs stems from the post processing restrictions that it gives me. I am critical of my photographs and no longer care to share them on line. I do not pursue the heavily filtered images that are so popular (I like them as well) and instead I work on that delicate balance between camera capture and final image printing. 

I know wonderful art when I see it, I also know luck when I see it.  I am fine with luck as I fully appreciate that I do not have talent but this does not prevent me from loving the attempt to make art through photography.  It does not prevent me from appreciating those who do have a talent.  ​​​​

I mostly shoot film but went back to digital with a new outlook.  I no longer need they latest gear or lenses.  Any lens I can grab will work.  Any camera I have will outshoot me. I found a Leica ME used for a good price. Less Mega Pixels but that no longer matters. The images are wonderful even if the technology is old for digital users today. The camera changes the kind of pictures I take, and I like the pictures I can take with this.

My goal now is very little digital post processing.  I do the basics but I do not create the image.  I do what I would normally do in a darkroom, I burn, I dodge and I crop.  I also convert to B&W but now I know what I am after.  

I want to print small and love the subtle touches in a photograph.  I realized that subtle is where the brilliance is and in modern, Instagram photography, few people shoot subtle. It is too easy to overlook, you have to dig for it, you have to find it in the image, deep within the image.

The smile that the bubble string makes, the birds on the floor, the bubble man's bags in the bottom right. The magnificent and timeless Thames and St Paul's in the background with the instant bubbles in the foreground. 

Sometimes our own stupidity astonishes us and today my own, legendary stupidity surprised me again.  I was reading another photography site where the author perfectly explained the challenge I have with digital photography.  It was a simple sentence but it perfectly captured my thoughts.  

He stated that the limitless potential of digital photography has little to do with photography and a great deal to do with post production. The image that comes straight from the camera is rarely used beyond the idle snapshot.  Today most digital is about the filters, Lightroom and Photoshop. It has very little to do with photography and a great deal to do with image manipulation.

Digital brings wonderful advantages to us however a poor photographer can make a stunning image in post processing. While post processing can be fun it really has nothing to do with photography.

Take the image shot above, using an old Nikon F on HP5+ film. There was little light so I pulled the tripod out, framed the shot and snapped it.  But I snapped it knowing that what came out of the camera is what I was going to have. In the darkroom I could increase the contrast, darken or lighten certain parts and that is all.  The image above is all about what happens in camera.

With my digital shooting I was putting less emphasis on what was being captured in camera and learning more and more about digital manipulation.  Look at some of the wonderful digital art that is being made today and you can see why. We have the tools, some have the talent so why not?  

As a photographer this takes us back to the pictorials days.  When photography was first being discovered, the majority of people did not view photography as art. Many of the people who worked so hard to discover it, did not see the artistic side. They viewed it as a scientific and engineering based process with no room for art.

Photographers, fighting this overwhelming perspective, fought back by heavily manipulating the photograph to make it more like paintings. Whatever they could do to the glass plate to alter the picture was viewed as artistic. This created a very dreamlike world that mimicked that created by oil painters. 

This became "straight" photography and it is what has dictated modern photography up until the 1990's.  Since the 90's we have seen digital take over as the premium medium of photography, and digital manipulation become the standard.  If you look at photographic competitions these days, you will see that it is hard to win without some level of filters or adjustment. 

This is not to say that some competitions do not ensure that this is kept to a minimum, or that some digital photographers are very good at capturing it properly in camera.  All I am suggesting is that the vast majority of photographs seen today have been heavily altered with a computer. It reaches a point where it is not longer a photograph and is now a digital paining that used a photograph as the base coat. 

I love my vintage film cameras and nothing brings me greater pleasure than to shoot with a film camera and advance the film. This last weekend, I took the family to an island near Jakarta so my wife and daughter could get SCUBA certified and when it came to selecting a camera I picked the Leica ME.

Let me begin by saying that I am not a Leica fanatic. I have a Leica ME and M6, both great cameras, but I sport Zeiss glass on them. The reason for that is that Zeiss glass is absolutely intoxicating! What these lenses are capable of producing is a constant surprise so why spend more money on Leica glass?  

I chose the ME as I wanted to capture the color of the island. Beaches are not very exciting to shoot, but the one thing they do provide is plenty of color. But when it comes to color, I love what the CCD sensor of this little camera can do. It is made by Kodak and it is reminiscent of the Kodachrome film that once ruled over advertising. 

I believe the ME is the perfect balance of a simple camera, good sensor size (18Mp is plenty in my book) and gives me a feel that is rather unique when used with Zeiss glass. The portraits that I manage to capture with this beauty always makes me happy. It is not as expensive as an M9, but does everything I need it to. The battery lasts for days and while the back screen is complete crap, I like the manual feel of everything. Get sloppy and the image is out of focus, forget your basics and your depth of field will be way off and if you are trying "auto" anything be ready to be disappointed. But if you take control of the camera you will be astounded with what you can do with it.

Here is a shot of my son on the pier near the beach. The Zeiss 50mm f/2 did exactly what I needed it to do. It threw the background out of focus but I nailed the focus on my sons eyes. A simple conversion to B&W and I have a great image, wonderful tonality and a vibrance that is difficult to find on digital. 

Ah yes, I was speaking about color.  Have a look at this shot above. The sun was setting, a storm was rolling in and the boats were seeking shelter. The scene was set and all I needed was a dynamic range coupled with the ability to show both the cool clouds and warm sunset in a single image. This was set on Auto WB and it nailed the scene perfectly. 

The simplicity of the camera makes me adopt a simple style of photography. I am not after winning any awards, I just want to capture an image that tells me the story of the scene. The Leica camera is known for getting out of the way of the photographer, and the Leica ME, while old in digital standards, does that better than any other digital Leica M camera I have seen.

A great deal has been written about the sensor corrosion issue. This has been all over the internet and has caused many to doubt Leica or at least the M9, ME and Monochrome cameras that they have made.  I have a very different perspective on this.  This camera was made in 2009, that is nine years ago and while it is indeed very expensive, it is unrealistic for us to believe that they will work forever.

If you want a camera that will last 50 years, I suggest a film camera. Digital technology just was not build with that kind of shelf life. Does the possibility of some marks on my sensor worry me?  No.  I have plenty of dust on there as well.  I will keep shooting my camera until those marks make it unusable.  If I manage to get 9 or even 10 years our of it I am thrilled. 

I bought my camera used with 209 shutter actuations. It had been sold a year before and the owner had upgraded to the newer camera. This was made back in 2015 and I purchased it in 2016. I managed to save a bit of money as everyone was talking about the Leica M10. 

Any camera/lens combination that allows me to take the images like the one above is an absolute gem in my mind. The colors are spot on, the contrast is well defined, the bohke is refined yet gives me the separation I need all of this in a camera much smaller than most DSLRs. 

I know many people love to hate Leica, just as they do Apple. As long as these two companies make good products I will happily buy them. Does Leica need to get their act together after these sensor issues? Absolutely.  But I will still look at their product and decided on a case by case basis whether I want one or not. The M240 and the M10 are not doing it for me yet but this little Leica ME is perfection in my book.  

When we start in photography we believe that bigger is better. We want to print our work as massive pictures, something that really draws the attention of the viewer. The bigger the better. I printed some massive pictures, some good some very poor. As I progressed in my photography I discovered the power of small.

This power is hard to grasp at first. Much like negative space, it is something that is plainly obvious in its presence but hard to describe. My discovery of the power of a small print came from an exhibit of Joseph Sudek in Paris. I went to see my favorite photographer's work and was shocked to find that the prints that he made were tiny.  I am talking the size of a medium format contact print. 

As I sat there taking in the small print I realized something completely unexpected. I had taken a step forward, closer to the image. I was interacting with the image in a completely different way, and it moved me. I sat, looking at the work of this one-armed master, and felt as if he had printed it just for me. 

I walked out of the exhibit mad. Mad that every book I have seen of his work made his prints so very large. They had detracted from the power of his work. They had made it somehow more industrial and less artistic. It was still magnificent photography, but the intimacy had been torn from the image. 

For those who have not tried making a small print to send a bit message, you are missing out on true power. Last weekend I took this concept into the darkroom with me. I went in and made smaller prints than I have ever made before. The end result was smoother tonality, less grain and sharper overall prints. Placed in a large frame with a large mat the eye naturally pulls the image in, detail jumps out and you have an intimate moment with the viewer.

The power of the small print is very real. As an added bonus it takes less paper, chemical and indeed time to get it right. I do not suggest that all your prints should be small, just the ones that you want to emphasize.