Success 20

"I believe photographers should shoot what they want, not shoot what they get."

    - Roberto Valenzuela

"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase."

    - Percy W. Harris

 

In this episode, Antonio dives into a bit of a rant about AI in photo editing, expressing his mixed feelings. He appreciates the convenience these tools offer but worries they’re stripping away the authenticity and skill that go into creating great photos. Antonio also talks about his recent street photography class and the joy of teaching others, even mentioning a beautiful day out shooting with his Fujifilm Instax camera.

Ward jumps in next, talking about his new Fujifilm XS20 camera. He talks about how well it performed at a rodeo event, praising the advanced autofocus and how easy it was to handle despite its compact size. Ward’s enthusiasm is contagious as he describes the buzz of getting those dynamic action shots, and how this new gear opened up new possibilities for his photography. He goes into detail about how the camera’s features, like the flippy screen and face detection, made capturing the fast-paced action much easier. Ward also shares his experience of learning to use the new camera on the go and how it helped him refine his skills.

This episode has Antonio in a bit of a ranting mood, while Ward’s excitement for his new camera gear shines through.

 

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Show Links:

Antonio M. Rosario's Website, Vero, Instagram and Facebook page

Ward Rosin’s Website, Vero, Instagram and Facebook page.

Ornis Photo Website 

The Unusual Collective

Street Shots Facebook Page

Street Shots Instagram

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
I believe photographers should shoot what they want, not shoot what they get.
Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.
Music.

(00:30):
Hey, welcome to the Street Shots Photography Podcast.
This is Antonio. And this is Ward.
And we are up to episode 210, 210 episodes, 2-1-0, 210, count them,
on many fingers and toes and stuff.

(00:51):
Sorry, I got a Mr. Softy machine going outside. Southwest, I think. Southwest, yeah.
210. Oh, that's right. right your degrees 210 yeah 10 episodes since our 200th
episode that's cool oh anyway okay.
I'm gonna go off the deep end tonight so just be prepared for those of you are
not into that you can fast forward to when ward's okay maybe we can get ai to

(01:18):
like just mute me it's a bit coming on an angry bit an angry bit coming well
anyway let's listen how are you doing i'm doing well Well,
things are going well for me and yeah, it's been, been good.
I got out and did some street photography on the weekend on Sunday. It was a very warm day.
Yeah, it was. Where'd you go? I went to downtown area,

(01:39):
my old, where I used to work down there and walked up and down and largely tourist
traffic and some, some locals taking in the restaurants and walking around, doing some shopping.
And then I went down to 17th Avenue, which is kind of our restaurant drag.
They call it Uptown 17, whatever.
Oh. Yeah. So it was a nice little walk.

(02:01):
Got a few miles of walking in and some color photography. Oh,
my goodness. Right. Yeah.
We didn't talk about that, but I've been seeing you doing more color these days.
It's just a phase. I'm sure I'll go back. Go back to that.
All right. Cool. Yeah. I, you know, I've been thinking of, I was in the city

(02:23):
a couple of weekends ago with my friend Geraldine. We met on a Saturday.
I don't really go into New York city that often.
And we were going to go to a pen store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
And cause she wants to, she's getting into fountain pens too.
So I'm like, Oh, it's a really cool store.

(02:43):
It's a lot of Japanese and South Korean. And I don't think a Chinese pens there,
but it's more, it's more Japanese.
Based stationary and pens, but to get there is kind of convoluted with the trains and, uh,
So instead of, she wanted, I want to get a pen. I want to buy a pen.
She was on her way to France in like a day or two after that.
So I said, well, let's let, instead of going there, cause convoluted,

(03:07):
let's go to downtown New York and Soho and, uh, you know, meet for lunch and
then we'll go to the Lamy store.
There's a Lamy flagship store. For those of you who don't know Lamy,
Lamy is fountain pen, pen maker based in Germany, now owned by mitsubishi paper
or something like that sorry i know too much about these things.

(03:30):
I'm going to join the dull men's club but i
was walking around the city i got off the train early and i brought i
had brought my gfx with me and i was going to do some street photography with
that which is not very easy to do i tease you about that you know you know yeah
carry this giant football thing all around to take yeah and i had yeah i had
the 80 millimeter lens on it because Cause I had the autofocus lens and I was

(03:52):
just like, I guess, cause I also wanted to show it to her.
Cause she was going to bring her like a Q3.
Oh man. She's not a show off. That's just a camera that she felt was really
her, that fit like her style of shooting and whatnot. And it is a really nice camera.
So. They're beautiful. Yeah.
Yeah. So before I got out early, before I was just leaner and I was walking

(04:14):
around and I was like, I just really need to come into the city.
You know sort of like what you did your version of it on a weekend because i
was meeting on a saturday weekends now in the you know you were here well you
were here in off season but the,
weekends are just incredible with people and i was like you know what there's
just a lot of things to shoot street wise and if i came in with my x100 i you

(04:35):
know could have a blast for like an hour or two like we did when we walked around
so i'm kind of itching to do that i can feel that bug coming back into me, the,
uh, the street shooting bug as it were.
I mean, I know it went away for a while, but I've been looking,
I've been looking at your stuff. Yeah.

(04:56):
I've been seeing other people's pictures, black and white stuff in,
in, you know, urban environments. And I've just been like, well, yeah, I can do that too.
You know, go in with, um, maybe go into the, try, try doing street photography
with a really wide lens, like a 28 or 24 equivalent.
Anything to see if I can start. Yeah. Yeah. And see if I can start working on

(05:17):
the multiple, like the, the, where the frame, there's a lot of stuff going on in the frame.
I really want to practice that. that so anyway where was i going with this i
can't remember where i was going with it.
Shooting county whatever anyway so but
yeah i've been i've been doing a lot of i haven't been
doing a lot of shooting i'm doing a lot of teaching lately so we'll

(05:37):
talk about that in a minute yeah but otherwise i
don't know it's it's warm we had early august here
and today today actually yesterday
in the past couple days actually the saturday i met i met
geraldine she was just this past saturday no it wasn't two
saturdays ago it was beautiful it was like i
couldn't believe how nice it was it was like i

(05:59):
don't know i don't know how you feel when you like go out in the weather's like incredibly nice
if it just just like adds to some excitement that you have i don't know what
it's like having it it's like the air is full of some sort of drug and you're
like oh this is nice yeah you know there's a breeze and and there's clouds and
stuff like that i had I had a street photography class a couple of weekends ago,

(06:20):
also at a new library that I'm teaching.
And it was one of those days. And I was like, I was like, I'm going out and shooting.
Usually with my street photography class, I send them out to go and shoot.
And then I stay behind. I'm like, nope, I'm going out.
Cause it was a new location too. So I went out and I was like,
how beautiful. So shot with my camera.
Uh, so yeah. Yeah.

(06:42):
This is going to be one of those episodes where I'm going to be kind of, well,
I know you've got something to talk about is very definite so that's great
so your half when it comes up i'm going to be a little bit of like
squirrel we're going to be a little unstructured are
we a little unstructured yeah you know we had such a good episode last our last
episode did we ever jeffrey saldinger that was great i like i held on to that

(07:05):
conversation and jeffrey thank you for being on the show and thank you for being
a listener it was really really great
experience and it's like been sitting with me for a while and yes we you know
we're not far away from each other in terms of like how the crow flies so hopefully
jeffrey will figure out some,
opportunity i'd like to figure out an opportunity to meet you in the real world.

(07:27):
And, you know, talk more, but that was a really great, that was a really great chat.
I've played it back twice or three times. Really?
Really? Okay. Like his pictures. I want to make sure I absorb everything,
you know? Yeah. Yeah. Me too.
And his, you know, thinking about his work and incorporating like my thought

(07:49):
process into how I'm shooting.
Like, that's what I'm kind of like to be
influenced by somebody who's on our show so directly is
really is exciting for me so i i
actually i can't remember if i mentioned this during our
recording but i probably did but i bring his
book with me to my classes sometimes my street photography classes i'm kind

(08:12):
of like i don't want a lot of people touching it just because like you know
making sure everybody's hands are not full of ice cream and stuff like that
so i don't want to ruin them so i kind of gauge like i look at the audience
i say okay they look okay yeah then And I'll take it out,
but I just brought it with me and I brought your book to yours and Mark's book
with me to my zine making class that I just had on Saturday,

(08:35):
Saturday at the library.
And even though it's not a zine, I bring them to show about pacing of,
of, and layouts of, you know, trying to tell a narrative with pictures.
Because basically I'm saying sometimes a zine is kind of just a small photo
book. So, you know, try to think in these terms as well.
I don't have enough zines on me.

(08:55):
To uh you know to show with you know to
show so i need to buy more zines which actually i
don't know if we talked about your uh your you received
your zines from the yeah we talked about it a recommendation cafe royal yeah
did we talk about it on here that uh i believe we did actually recommended yeah
it was the recommendation right but did you get did you already have the books

(09:16):
then when you when you were talking about it or maybe not yeah they received
them two weeks ago Oh, maybe we just missed.
I think we missed it. It was the show before Jeffrey, I think we talked about.
Yeah, so, no, you had gotten them between.
In between those shows, yeah. Yeah, we talked about what you got,
but you received them. Yeah. So, let me know, what were they like?

(09:38):
They're amazing. Really? Okay.
Most of the pictures are full bleed, so they go right to the edges, but it's fine.
Line they they're very like they're the lion's
share of his archive there is is
pictures from the uk and ireland and northern ireland so there's a lot of a

(09:59):
lot of history a lot of 50s 60s 70s there and also i ordered one that was from
a a an american photographer out of new york from your neighborhood i'm taking
pictures around coney island and brooklyn brooklyn bridge,
They're great, mostly black and white. One picture that was about...

(10:19):
Salford in, or Salford in the UK, it was in color.
And it was interesting to see those color pictures from the 60s.
They look like they might've been from slides.
So the pictures or the colors were quite vivid.
And yeah, they were six pounds 40, I think, each, 32 pages.

(10:40):
So there were pounds, not euros. There are pounds. I said in the original episode,
yeah, that they were, they were euros. So they're a little bit more expensive,
but still not, not unreasonably expensive.
No. And they're, they're, he has something, he has over a thousand of them available. So.
What's the name of the website again? Cafe Royal.
Cafe Royal Press. Cafe Royal Press. Yeah. Or something like that. Yeah.

(11:03):
I'll put them in the show notes again, since we're talking about it,
but it's two episodes ago that we were, we were talking about this,
but I, I suggested that place to my zine students, you know, not only Etsy.
I think Etsy is a good place to find zines, but this place that you talked about.
And I think I need to order some of the books too.
I might do that in the next couple of days or something so I can have.

(11:25):
Just spend some time just because he, if I'm not mistaken, he,
on the website, you can see all the pictures that are in the, in the zine as well.
So you can make up for your own mind what you want to have arrive at your doorstep.
No big surprises. It's very, yeah, it's, it's great. Well, I'm all for surprises.

(11:48):
I don't mind if they're, that's true. Yeah. But I mean, if you were going to,
if you went to a magazine store, a bookstore, you would be flipping through it and decide to buy it.
Yeah. So, I mean, I like, I like that ability to, you know, I don't,
I don't, I try, I'm not a big fan of not, of, of buying a book without seeing
what's inside of it a little bit.
You know, I just feel like I've taken some chances and I've gotten some stuff

(12:09):
I don't like, but, but yeah, cool. Cool.
Six pounds 80 translates to whatever in your local currency.
It sounds like a good deal.
Yeah. And the shipping for three of them, because I ordered three, was five pounds 50.
Oh. On top of that. All right. And that was, I think it was just Royal Mail.
That was mail. That wasn't courier.
So. So it's just, it just comes when it comes. Oh, that's great.

(12:31):
Okay. Great. It was not even two weeks. Yeah. Well. Well.
Good recommendation and you know i want to buy more zines if not for myself
i mean just because i love these things but also to you know to share with people
i know in my classes and stuff so,
cool so let me go into my ranting.

(12:54):
Rant on i don't know not rants i got a bunch of stuff i like i said i haven't
been i haven't been shooting so much lately i mean i bring my camera with me
to breakfast i have the the, I've been carrying around again,
actually taking out of retire, not retirement, but sort of taking out of the closet,
dusting off my X 100 F because like I'm going to a coffee shop and I'm bringing

(13:17):
a lot of writing materials with me.
So I'm going to travel light, but I'm not doing a lot of walking around with
it, like going around my neighborhood and stuff.
And so I've kind of, and actually I've just looked at my X 100s role and I realized
that I've got pictures from April, but I still have yet to take off the camera.
So if any of my students are listening to this, don't do as I do.

(13:39):
Yeah. Yeah. Don't do as I do. Don't leave them on the camera for that long.
I mean, really, I just need to sit here and pop them into my,
uh, into my Lightroom catalog.
So, but you know, I've been doing a lot of classes for brick in the library,
so I've been tweaking them and just nervous about it. And I finished the Lightroom class.
Oh, today's Tuesday. Right. right so i finished a light room class yes

(14:00):
last night it was a two-parter which still
needs some tweaks but you know as one
rant i had a few i had like six people show up for
the first class and then only three people showed up for the second class so
i try not to take that personally because i don't know why people don't show
up but you know it's the and it's not a free class right they're paying for
it right no it's 40 bucks right so it's 20 bucks for things so i mean i I have

(14:24):
to imagine that it couldn't be because they didn't like me because you know, 20 bucks.
I don't know, but I, I am tweaking the class.
Well, again, as I run the class, as I run through the classes,
I have to tweak it, but it's a little frustrating because it's not like my other
classes where I'm up and being my personality, I'm teaching a program and that's.
And it's a lot different than teaching photography or getting excited by history

(14:47):
and, and going out and shooting.
So, but yeah, I'm developing some other classes more to do with fountain pens
and writing, but like the photo journaling class was getting a lot of,
that's getting a lot of thumbs up from people.
Yeah. And I even incorporated some information about that into, what was it?
My mobile phone photography class, which is kind of online.

(15:10):
But again, to try to tell people, Hey, look at pictures, you know,
you want to look at, you want to make your photography better,
even with a smartphone, you know, look at other people's pictures. So.
So that it's not quite a rant, but that's kind of where I'm at.
The other thing that is going on, you know, we, we've talked about this until
we're blue in the face, but I'm, I'm becoming more and more dismayed at the rise of AI.

(15:34):
And especially even though I use it, especially in Lightroom,
have you, have you used the new Lightroom generative to, to,
to, well, to remove objects like, but you've used it. Yeah.
Yeah. I've used it. Well, the generative, I haven't done anything with clouds or anything like that.
I've been fortunate. The clouds have been, the sky's been quite dramatic where

(15:57):
I've been shooting. I thought you were talking about the Adobe's cloud.
No, sorry. You're talking about clouds, like real clouds. Clouds. Yeah.
Clouds filling in. No, I use it just to remove objects that are distracting
power lines and things like that.
Yeah. I like the smart removal tool.
You know, I like it too. And again, it, it, it pressed, I want to say it presses some buttons.

(16:18):
I mean, cause I use it and I can imagine if you were a retoucher,
it's, you know, you can do so much now you can do so much more in Lightroom
if you're even just doing people retouching, you could, you could do a lot,
not have to leave it, although Photoshop seems to be better for that, but the,
you know, the ease at, at it, like I was working on a picture just today and

(16:40):
it was on my phone too, because you have the generative fill on the,
on the phone version of Lightroom.
Uh, CC, well, it's not Lightroom CC, but just Lightroom. And I was removing
some wires from a sign that was on the wall at, uh, at brick.
Uh, it was kind of cool sign.
And there was a fire alarm at the top and I was like, oh, let me just use the
generator filled so I could just get the sign.
And I was like, it's not reality. You know, it's not what I took a picture of.

(17:04):
And I know this, you know, and if I didn't have generator fill,
I probably wouldn't have cloned it out. I might've just left it in.
Cause that was the picture I took, but it was like, well, you know, let me,
you know, know that temptation like the the little ai demon
devil on my shoulder saying yeah just use yeah
just use me i was like oh okay that
i don't know where to go with this i mean

(17:26):
i know we probably talked we talked about this a year ago about
ai and and i don't think we were at this point and i don't want to go into this
deep dive about it because it's talked to death but there is just something
about it that's bringing me down a little and i think it's because it's really
eating into the business of photography faster than I, well, I don't know.

(17:47):
I said, I think if we went back to the last year and listened to the show,
I think I said a certain amount of time, but I didn't think back then I would
feel the way I do now. You know?
Well, you're seeing it and feeling it and being able to use it.
So. Yeah. It'll change your perception.
Yeah. And then seeing how other people are reacting to it and the whole, I don't know.

(18:07):
So there's something about it that is just bumming me out. You know,
I'm not saying that's the cause of my, like my, you know, summer doldrums,
but, but it's in that pile a little bit. And, you know, I don't know.
Anyway, I won't go too much into it because I'm just not, I'm not quite,
I'm not quite settled on how I feel about it.
I just know I'm on the, I'm now on the side of like, eh, you know,

(18:30):
I could see where it's going to be helping, but it's, I think that's going to
be hurting more than it's going to be helping.
And we're still not at that level yet where, where we're going to see the final
results. Like how many photographers or media makers, once the video starts
coming out, video quality, it's like how many people are going to really.
How is it going to really impact them? Like, are people going to be losing jobs?

(18:52):
Are studios going to close down?
Caterers going to do this or models, like all this, like, is it starting to happen?
So, you know, maybe in another year we'll talk about it or something like that.
Maybe sooner given the way things are going, but things are moving pretty quick, man. Yeah.
The other thing is I did, I did put in an order when it was announced for that Fuji film X, 100 VI.

(19:15):
I'm not going to call it a 106, by the way. I know there's a lot of people going, is it a six or is it VI?
It's VI because all the way up until the last X100, they didn't call it the
X105 or the X104 or the X103.
It was the F, it was the T, it was the V, it was the S, right?

(19:38):
So it's the VI, right? Not the six.
So whenever you people are listening to this, you're you're
full of it wow i told you
i'm in a ranty mood man there's it took a turn i
show i'm hot and sweaty right this is new york this is like uh anyway it's hot
and sweaty again and i had it because i have to close the window when we do
our show so yeah i put the order in when it when it was announced and yeah they're

(20:02):
nowhere to be found these days and i keep seeing i'm on a facebook group there's
people who are who are you know it's an excellent 100 everybody's oh i just
got mine today and i pre-ordered it the same day and i was like yeah well where's mine.
So it's not bothering me that much because i have enough i've got
cameras that keep me you know happy so i'm not really going crazy about it but

(20:23):
it is kind of it's you know i heard rumors that like i might i didn't get an
announcement yet but it's possible i might get mine in september i was hoping
you get it for the summer photography season but yeah well you You know,
then it's the fall season,
you know, but, uh, I'll probably, you have lovely falls there. I'm like here.
Yeah. I'll probably sell my, I'll probably sell the, as I really don't want two of these things.

(20:45):
So the X 100 F, which is a really nice camera, by the way, I'll probably get
rid of, I'm going to get rid of that so that, you know, trying to get rid of
cameras these days, but it is, you know, they're making, I heard,
you know, what, 15,000 a month and they just can't keep up.
So whatever, whatever.
But you know, that, that adds to my, like, I kind of want it.
Like they do want to get the better lens and the higher resolution, right?

(21:08):
Yeah. And, you know, I can crop it in a little bit and I might want to get some
sort of wide. I might get the wide angle adapter for it. So I can go a little wider.
Well, let's see. What else? What else am I going to go? I'm just looking at
my list of the, the rant. Oh, so yeah, this will be the last rant.
I promise that we'll go right to what you're talking about. Cause I want to
talk about gear, but because I'm a teacher, right.

(21:30):
I teach a lot of beginners. Okay.
For like i do like you know three hour intro to digital photography which is
a ridiculous name i named it but it's like it's you know it it resonates with people looking for it
so i've got to introduce them to the basics of photography the shutter speed
aperture the you know exposure nonsense i don't do the exposure triangle and

(21:52):
i'll come into that for a second but like all the basic stuff and i i try to
give them some resources so that they're you know even though they're only there
for three hours they can follow up and i put some
books from Amazon on the list and even a bunch of little prompt cards that I found someplace,
you know, so they can have those, you know, for making images and stuff like that.

(22:12):
But, you know, I was, I was thinking like maybe I should make a photography
cheat sheet for them. Right.
And, you know, I've been, you know, if you do a search for photography and cheat
sheets and, you know, Google or, or, you know, Pinterest or something like that,
you get, you know, hundreds of them.
And I was looking at them and I was thinking like, Hey, well,
maybe I can just look at some of these and pattern after this.
And I was like, none of these make any sense whatsoever.

(22:37):
I don't know if you've noticed. And one's even called making sense of F stops.
Is it? Okay. Yeah. All right. They're making sense of the speed scale.
So I'm imagining myself, right? Like learning photography first time.
And you know, I went to school and you had books to read and stuff like that.
And I was like, I was looking Looking at these, I said, would I understand anything
if I was a brand new photographer and I had to look at these cheat sheets and

(23:02):
try to figure out what they mean relative to me trying to move my photography forward and learn?
And I was like, no effing way.
Like there's some part of me that looks like no matter how cute the icons are,
you know, how many little arrows point in this direction and that direction?
And fuzzy, you know, out of focus, you know, graphics of a tree to show depth

(23:28):
of field. Like some of these things just don't make sense to me.
And I would be remiss to give a brand new student one of these things and say,
well, here's your cheat sheet, right?
Interpret what I told you in my class from this sheet. Right. And,
So I was looking, I was trying to look and it's like, no, there's no way I'm
looking at one here. Like when to increase your ISO.
And I'm not going to, I'm not going to post these because I don't want to embarrass

(23:50):
anybody, but the picture is a sun with waves and an arrow, right?
Talking about a signal, right?
And it says strong sunlight and there's a bright light produces a strong signal
and this doesn't need amplifying. So the ISO can be left at the lowest setting.
And then I'm like, what? what strong light produces a strong signal that doesn't

(24:12):
need to be amplified. Okay, fine.
So, so the camera is an amplifier. It's not, well, it is, but it's a bad metaphor.
Oh, it is. And then, you know, trying to make sense of the exposure triangle too.
Like I actually tried to one day make an animation of exposure triangle and

(24:32):
show like, you know, shifting values on the triangle.
And it didn't work because it's not a triangle yeah right it's just someone
someone wrote it let's see if i could say it's uh if i could find what the wording
that he said oh i don't know.
It's like the only thing that that that aperture shutter speed and iso have

(24:54):
to do with a triangle is threeness and so when i also talk to my students i
say you're gonna hear something about,
something that's called the exposure triangle i said just ignore it
right because i don't want to confuse you anymore it's just
these three things are you know
help you dealing with with exposure and i have to describe what exposure is

(25:16):
and aperture shutter speed nice so but go pay no attention to anything about
exposure triangle so i found some funny sites that were sites that were making
fun of exposure triangles and why cheat sheets are bad ideas and maybe Maybe
they'll put those in the,
in the show notes so you can read them. They're kind of, they're kind of informative and funny.
And, you know, maybe our audience is not quite at that, but you know,

(25:37):
it's kind of useful if anybody in our audience teaches other people photography or shows them.
And anyway, I thought it was fun, but I was really just sort of blown away by
how bad these things are and how confusing they are.
So I don't know if you, you know, I didn't comment about this,
but. Oh, I have a comment.
Yes. And it goes back to my Time Life Library of Photography,

(25:58):
the volume called Light and Film.
The metaphor they used was a faucet, a tap, and a beaker at the bottom of the underneath.
And you open the tap for a duration. That represents your shutter speed.
You open the tap to a certain opening.
That's your aperture. And then how long it takes to fill the beaker,

(26:22):
the size of the beaker, is the speed of the film. So the smaller the beaker, the faster the film.
And then that's interesting. Yeah. Okay. So you could have it open a quarter
of the way and it takes 10 seconds to fill, or you can open it all the way and
it takes, you know, two and a half seconds to fill.
Right. So it's the same, that metaphor works and that I learned that early.

(26:47):
I learned that when I was 11, what I tripped over was the fractional aspect
of the numbers on the camera, which you're looking at are fractions.
It's not a thousand seconds.
It's one, one thousandth of a second. It's not, it's not F two and it's,
it's one over two of the, of the focal length.
So you have to get that over. You got to get that through your head and that

(27:12):
takes a while. And that's the hardest part is understanding what those numbers are.
Yeah. And, but the actual metaphor is the faucet is the tap is the,
how much you open the tap and how long you let the tap run. And that's.
It's funny that you said that because I didn't know that was in those books.
And in my intro to digital photography show, after I talk about exposure and

(27:34):
I do a little teeter-totter thing to show how the relationship of a shutter,
one setting is equal to an aperture.
If you change one in one direction, you have to change the other in the other
direction. You can see an exposure.
But then I say, I put up a slide with a faucet.
Yeah. And, and the faucet is representative of the camera, but it's actually

(27:57):
a faucet. And then the shutter is the spigot, right.
And the aperture, I I've done something a little bit different.
I don't know if it made sense, but the aperture would be the width of the pipe.
Right. And the sensor is a bucket.
And if the bucket, if you don't feel the bucket all the way,
that's an underexposed picture.
If you overflow the bucket, that's an overexposed picture. But if you fill the bucket just right.

(28:20):
That's the right exposure. And, you know, I throw that on there because for
the exact same reason is, you know, it's all this stuff that's complex.
I don't talk about the, I mean, did you talk about the fractions of shutter speeds?
I say these numbers are actually, you know, are a fraction.
I don't tell them about aperture because that gets like, yeah,
I would say beginning, it's a little confusing.

(28:40):
Well, it's easier to grasp shutter speeds as you know.
Yeah. The higher number is more fast as speed is, you know.
Right. but when it's apertures it's like how
come the bigger number isn't a bigger yeah i just
tell them i said i say i always say just like there's two things in
in photography where the numbers mean opposites right shutter speed
and aperture and then i i don't describe to them aperture because it's almost

(29:04):
no point in telling them that it's a fraction of the lens focal length because
that's just a geeky thing it's theory you know yeah theory yeah so like the
practical part of aperture is like well if you set the number to this you're
going to get less light If you set it into that, you're going to get more light.
Or if you set it to this, you're going to get, you know, a blurrier background.
I said, it's a, you know, just try to keep it simple.
So anyway, I I'm still sort of left here thinking about like,

(29:27):
how would I make my own sort of photography cheat sheet?
So that might be a project I work on because I like, I would love to do that
and do it in a way that makes sense and not this like little scale that,
you know, I don't know the stuff I've seen just made me crazy.
So anyway, that's, I guess that wasn't such a bad rant.
Music.

(29:56):
I don't know. you're gonna finally tell us what we've i don't know how many
people are sitting there hanging on the edge of their seat none listening to
this podcast saying zero care what camera did he get he's he's held on to this
for at least what it's two or three episodes Or three, yeah,
I guess six weeks, something like that.
Everybody's like, they don't really care. No, they don't care.

(30:18):
They don't care. But, okay, so now you can tell us, right? Okay.
Let's hear your, tell me, you talk.
So I bought, I think right now it is the most cost-effective,
the cheapest Fujifilm camera you can buy.
It's the X-S20.
So. Yay.
Yeah. And the reason why I got it was primarily because I shoot stills and it's

(30:43):
got all this blogging capability and it's got fancy,
you know, the flippy screen and everything, which I love because I can fold
the screen into the camera and I can treat it.
I can adjust all my menus and stuff using the viewfinder.
So you don't have to look at the screen again. Yeah. So, and,
and I like that. I like that.

(31:05):
I like that abstractions. I don't have to, I'm not, when I'm chimping,
I'm looking through the camera. I'm not looking at the back of the camera.
That's the one thing you...
Can you do with that camera is, is review the pictures through the viewfinder? Oh yeah.
And then, and then when you use the, the, you know, the, the same motor drive,
but they continue with shooting.

(31:26):
If you hold the joystick over while you're viewing it, you get to watch the little movie.
It's like you're, you're looking in a, you know, like I'm in a,
in a 12 frame a second film.
That's right. Yeah. It's, it's fun. Well, congratulations.
Yeah. Yeah, well, it's got the latest processor, and it's got the 26 megapixel

(31:46):
sensor, which I don't need.
I don't need no 40 or no 50 or no 100, like certain people I know.
I just want it. You just want it, yeah. Because I'm, you know,
I'm not a rich guy, and I like to conserve my storage.
So when you start up and upping the size of your files, it gets,

(32:07):
it gets to be a lot to not just store, but also to back up.
Yeah. So it's that. And the reason why I got it when I got it was primarily, well, it was available.
It was backordered as well, like your X100.
And so I got the call from the camera store and said, oh, we got it here.
And like, oh, can we put it off a week? Well, we've only got X number of them

(32:29):
and they're going to go. So I'm like, okay, I'll come down to the store and pick it up.
So, you know, it's funny, you, you dream about getting these things and then
the time comes, you're like, oh, I can't wait to payday.
I'm like, that's all right. You put it on the credit card, pay it off.
It'll, it'll be, you'll be fine.
Did you get it with a lens or? No, I got it.
I got enough lenses for, for all my street stuff, for my Fuji.

(32:51):
You have two XE3s already plus what three Fuji lenses.
The 23, 50, and the 16, the 23 and the 50 are the F2, and the 16 is the 1-4,
which is, oh gosh, again, I love that lens.
So I got it in time for the Handtills Lake Stampede, which is the rodeo that

(33:14):
I go to either at the end of May or the beginning of June, where my extended
family has been involved in it.
And my ancestors have been involved with that particular rodeo in East Central
Alberta since it opened. Is this the one you did the book for or not?
This is the one Mark and I did the book for. Okay, this is the book one,
right? There's two stampedes that you go to.
That I go to, yes. There's that one, and then there's the Calgary Stampede,

(33:37):
which is like a big state fair.
Gotcha. Which is just south of downtown in Calgary. And those pictures,
I don't shoot the animals and the competitors.
I shoot, well, the other animals, the people walking the Midway.
Right. Which is an intense street shooting experience, walking the Midway up
and down every year. We got that figured out. Yeah, fantastic.

(33:59):
So, XS20, buy an extra battery? I did.
I bought an extra battery, and I was very impressed, as the kids would say.
I got over, and I was not using boost mode, because I find I didn't need to
use boost mode, which I thought would suck Have you tried using boost mode?
I had not tried using boost mode. I didn't need it in the continuous shooting modes. It was fine.

(34:21):
Yes, the image jitters a little bit,
but for the kind of action that I was shooting it was
not a problem at all my suggestion if i
may and sorry for anybody who's not a fuji person
leave it in burst mode all right uh burst
boost boost boost okay yeah
yeah you will find that that it will

(34:42):
perform if it's like any of the other cameras that
i've got that have the boost mode it performs much
much better and it sounds like you had a good example
of it but just try it with it on and like leave it on it doesn't really use
that much more battery power okay particularly now another thing about the xs20
has a larger battery yes right you'll be able to go all day with that thing

(35:04):
but and i did i went over a day i went a day and a half with uh yeah,
with the first you have an extra battery now so you know throwing it in boost
mode we'll get there's there's things about it anyway go ahead sorry cool mr
smarty pants over here No, that's fine. Everything. So.
What was I going to say? Oh, so I go to the stampede. It was just kind of setting

(35:27):
the stage for like actually going there. So I've been going there since I was a little kid.
It's my first kind of big annual photo project thing that I do every year.
So it kind of wakes me up completely from the sleepiness of winter and the cold Canadian, whatever.
And, and, you know, and I'm walking Walking around there, you know,

(35:50):
I'm getting back into using the equipment.
I usually rent a lens and then this, this year was no different.
I get the, the Fuji 40 to, or sorry, 50 to 140, which I put on the X-S20 and
it was on there the whole time. I didn't take it off.
That's a full frame equivalent of a 70 to 200, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah.

(36:11):
Good lens. Really good lens. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. With that camera
between with IBIS and optical image stabilization together and me shooting.
Oh, of course I had pretty high shutter speeds when I was shooting,
but yeah, no, it was, uh, that lenses was really good.
And so, yeah, so that was, that was great.

(36:34):
So, and I, I didn't really shoot much air film.
I didn't play around with it in the house. Like some people do,
you know, before I go do the big assignment. So I was learning the camera as
I was shooting my rodeo pictures, which is.
So everybody who's listening to the show, don't do as we do.
Do as we say. Learn your camera before you go out on a job. I am 10 years into the Fuji system.

(36:59):
No, I'm 10 years into the Fuji system. And I did memorize as much of the, I'm that nerd.
I have the, I have a copy of the manual PDF on my phone and I'm like, Oh, wait a sec.
What if I wanted to do this? and i programmed this before you had the camera yeah so yeah oh yeah okay.
Yeah, you're definitely a nerd. Because I ordered it, and I'm like,

(37:19):
oh, how do I do this? And then what if I want to, you know, whatever.
It's a little bit different than the X-E3. So it has a whole bunch of performance
stuff. It's kind of like having your camera before you actually get it,
right? Yeah, yeah. Okay.
And then I had the control wheel set the way I wanted, and I had,
you know, so I could change autofocus modes or drive modes or that sort of thing.

(37:41):
So that part was not a problem. problem
i'm having trouble i'm kind of tripping over the front control wheel which is
not clickable on my xc3 they're clickable for so i can do settings of iso or
whatever it end up i ended up not using the front control wheel as much as i
did in my do on my street cameras but.

(38:04):
It's not that much of a hardship and i did order a a grill sort of it's not
really a You call it a grip, I suppose.
It's the, the small rig bracket to go under it, to give it a bit more depth at the bottom.
So my little finger doesn't trip off the bottom of it because it's a very small
camera, which is a blessing and maybe a little bit of a curse when you have a bigger lens on it.

(38:27):
But the balance I didn't find was any problem at all shooting, shooting sports.
And you do have to, depending on the sport, you have to swing the lens back
and forth rather rapidly.
Rapidly so in my experience shooting
auto racing where i'm often on a monopod i swing on the monopod and when i'm
shooting i'm poking the camera through a fence and i can kind of swing in the

(38:48):
middle so my head is moving it's just it's whatever so i i didn't have to like
move the mass of the lens i could just pivot in place when i was panning shooting the animals whatever.
So, so what was it like using your new camera, but in like a place that you've been before?

(39:08):
It was fine. I mean, I, I'm used to the way that your viewfinder looks.
The only thing, like I said, it was my right hand is where the shutter release and the.
And the front control wheel. But I did have occasion to use shutter mode,
which I never use on the street. Shutter priority.
And manual. Well, you're shooting action. You're shooting some action. Yeah, I'm shooting.

(39:31):
Yeah. But I would just pick an aperture where I knew the shutter speed would
be fast enough. Now I'm like, no.
I pick two thousandth of a second and let the ISO float.
And then pick an aperture. It's going to work. Sorry, I'm going to ask you this as well.
You know, your X-E3s are more range finders. So your eye is off to the left

(39:51):
side of the camera. This camera is centered.
How did that affect you? It sounds
like you haven't used a D like a DSLR style camera in a while. Yeah.
My Canon 7D that I shot for the book was the last time I was there with the
camera that had a viewfinder. So you've been a while.
Yeah. Like in a view, in a range finder style.
Yeah. So I found that that throws me off a little bit because,

(40:11):
well, I'm a left eye person. So I'm kind of.
Oh, you are. I'm left eye too. So you were messed up anyway.
Right. Yeah, I was messed up my nose, pressed up against, because I could never
use it. Not that I was ever a big fan of the touchscreen on the back of the
Fujis, but I always disabled it.
And that's the first thing I do is I disable the touchscreen.
But no, it was better. It was better because I can turn my head and press my

(40:36):
face against the back of the camera, which is what I used to do in SLR days.
Also because i wear glasses people are complaining that the magnification is not the greatest,
on that camera but it's good for me because i have longer eye relief i'm further
away from the viewfinder so i can't get as close as your nor as your average

(40:57):
bear so i could see the whole i could see the whole viewfinder looking through
my glasses and being a little bit further away,
and that's another that was another like feature that i didn't expect was like
oh good we've got less magnification.
So I don't have to worry so much with my glasses on. Hmm.
Those view. Fine. I can't use my glasses because I have progressives and.

(41:19):
You know, like you tilt your head. If I tilt my head one bit away,
like all of a sudden I got to change the diopter again.
And I just have to shoot without my glasses, which is a real pain in the butt
because I've got to put my glasses back on to look at the pictures.
But are you, you're not. And so, okay, go ahead.
So, no. Okay. So we, the, the original question there was like, what was it like?
So the, the, the distracting part was all of these new features of the camera,

(41:44):
properties of the camera that I had never really used before since my Canon
gear. year and it's faster.
Like I found that I didn't have to do much more than four frames a second for
the continuous shooting, just the nature of the, of the competition.
I could kind of figure it out. What I did do too was I like a golf swing.

(42:07):
I would just follow through. I would watch the main action. I'd shoot the main
action and then I'd watch the horsey run away.
And like i was not going to use any of those pictures of
the horse running away i just wanted the peak of
action when the horse is actually going around the barrel so that was like you
know lord you don't you don't need so there was a few frames or quite a few

(42:29):
frames actually i know i'm not i'm not going to use i really like the the the
autofocus performance of that.
Face detect or whatever, even on a further subject, it kept the competitor's
face in focus and with the jumping stock and the saddle bronc and bareback where,
and the bull riding where there's a lot of thrashing around and the poor guy's

(42:53):
head is like bobbing around in the frame and it was keeping it.
It was, I could see the square over top of the, over top of the guy.
So I didn't do animal detect because.
That would throw things. That would, that would, well, it would,
the animal's eyes would be in focus and the cowboy could conceivably be out of focus.
So, so that, that part was good.

(43:15):
Well, sorry, go ahead. No, no. It sounds like a good review.
Yeah. Oh, it is. Absolutely. And it,
and I had shot speed skating a couple of times last year and the year before
I had rented an XT3 with that lens, that, that 50 to 140.

(43:37):
And it was really not very good sports camera at all.
And I ended up pre-focusing like I was, like I had a, you know. Like an animal.
Like a barbarian. That's like some guy from before the war, he pre-focused and
the skater's going to be right there and you hit the shutter and the skater
is right there. Good luck with that.

(43:58):
So this was like, not that. It was like I could just, I could concentrate on
my composition way more.
And it did lead into some, led me down a couple of paths or whatever, rabbit holes.
One was because I could zoom in more and try and keep the animal in frame,

(44:20):
I ended up kind of taking away the environment that the ride was taking place
in, which I kind of regret now.
That's okay. I'll fix that the next year when I go, I'll look back out a little bit. Yeah.
That was one thing. Also too, it gave me, I was able to shoot manually.
That was the other thing I was just starting to say was front and back control

(44:43):
dials. I could just kind of move around and do whatever.
I could shoot manually and that was fantastic too. So show the priority.
Can we take a side trip for just a minute?
Sure. Let's not go too deep down this. But as you're describing this,
I'm realizing, you know, you've got this new piece of gear and this is,
you're in this familiar place that you're shooting.

(45:04):
And it's giving you some abilities that it sounds
like you didn't have before right and you know
how speak to the idea of this
being an example of where the equipment matters in
some way like it's augmenting something that
you already have you know what i mean like you often talk about
them people's equipment doesn't matter camera doesn't matter well true in

(45:26):
some sense and not true like it it will do
something for you for the person for the seasoned photographer
it opens up new doorways right
or something like so just speak to that for like a little bit i don't want
to go too far yeah so i wrote a blog post like i don't
know like eight years ago on my own website which i
think they're only like three blog entries there where i

(45:47):
talked about what's your trigger to buy new gear and one is
if you're up against the wall and
there's something you want to do that gear solves the problem for
you then go ahead and buy it instead of
just buying it because you like the look of it so i kind of like the way i've
been buying gear the last since i got rid of my canon stuff i've been only buying
stuff as i need it and and you know when i shot with the canon and we did the

(46:12):
book and then i got rid of it and went into fuji land i kind of gave up all that sport.
Capability that i had and the last couple years shooting the rodeo i'm like
i'd rent i'd rent Rent that 50 to 140 and I'd put it on my XC3 and it was just horrible.
Okay. Hey, I had to try it. I, you know, so I was like, you know,

(46:33):
I want to get back into sports and I have plans to go to an auto race in January next year.
So I'd like to have some gear that's going to allow me to give me some of the
capability I had when I had my Canon stuff.
So this was part of that. yeah you've been
able to take you what you've done and your skill and and

(46:54):
you said i'm not saying hit a wall but like you can now go further yeah with
this new device and you know it's interesting about like for people who are
just starting off is like how do they know when they hit a wall you know i mean
like how do they know at what point they need a new piece of gear or something
like that and and we don't have to answer that now it's just you know,

(47:14):
I sort of throw that out into the world because, you know, people want to,
I'm like, I got to get this camera because so-and-so told me I have to get this
camera. I have to get this lens.
It's like, well, no, but then how do you know when it's time to get that camera
in that way? Well, for me, it's just, if there's something you really want to
do and you can't with the gear that you have.
Yeah. I mean, I think that's the simplest, the oversimplified version of it.

(47:35):
It is. All right. Okay. And the thing is the XS20 made all of that possible,
even without a boost mode.
Right. So, so I really enjoyed that. Okay, don't go into boost mode.
Sorry, I'm arguing. I don't even know. I didn't even turn it on.
I thought, I just wanted to save battery because I'm out there.
We only run the generator for an hour because we were camping.

(47:58):
And I only run the generator for about an hour and a half, and that's not long
enough to charge everything.
So I wanted to kind of preserve that. As it turned out, I didn't really need to worry.
Yeah, you don't have to worry about it. Just go into boost mode.
All right. So continue. Continue, you know, let's, uh, let's,
let's go down the path a little bit more.
So yeah. And we have these lunatics outside. You hear that?

(48:18):
No, I don't hear it. This is New York is getting worse, by the way. Anyway, sorry.
Go ahead. I'm done with ranting. It's all right. This is happiness now.
Happiness. Okay. Happiness, happiness.
So I decided last year I wanted to go after thinking I was going to do all this
arty kind of, you know, kind of a continuation, whatever you want to call it
of the book and this black

(48:38):
and white pictures of closeups of the competitors and the animals and all that kind of stuff.
And I was kind of not really hitting a, not really hitting a brick wall,
but not really finding any kind of satisfying, I don't know,
number of images that worked i
know there were a couple of you know a
bull rider who was thrown to the ground and the picture that

(49:01):
i took was the immediate aftermath of that with the bull jumping
away and the and the bull rider like
face down on the ground with the dust still rising
as he's just impacted the ground those are
the kind of pictures that i wanted to do but they were
few and far between and in terms of pushing along
a kind of a creative stream there wasn't really enough there so i thought this

(49:25):
year with this new camera i would go back into just shooting straight up action
just to go back to you know run home drama and just do something that i knew i could do,
and that i understood the sport well enough that i could make some striking
images just just, I won't say without a really trying,

(49:46):
but having, uh, having those reflexes, those chops and building them up and
being able to produce something that might be interesting.
At the same time, the back of my mind thinking, oh, I really like my already
black and white pictures and this whole weekend, there's not going to be there,
but I did discover a couple of things.
Sorry. Is it really one or the other that you have to do? I guess.

(50:07):
Yeah. Get a certain mindset.
Yeah. So let's take, for example, barrel racing.
That particular sport so where
i camp out by the fence i'm on
the outside of the arena and there's a barrel set up about 10 feet or 12 feet
away from the fence where i'm at so i can just poke the lens in and the horse

(50:29):
comes around with the rider on kind of like a figure eight has to ride around
the barrel there are three barrels there's like do this kind of triangle figure
your eight pattern around these barrels.
So the barrel that I'm at is usually the barrel that the competitors go around first.
And the XS20 with the long lens on it is the focal length is too long. Okay.

(50:54):
Because they're too close so i'd use the xc3 with the 23 millimeter and it was great because.
I set it to two thousandth of a second and i don't care you know it's still
mechanical shutter so there's no no issues with rolling shutter or anything
like that so what i'd do is i'd have both cameras around my one that around

(51:17):
my neck my the xs20s in the bag beside me,
and i take the picture of the competitor going
around the barrel close with my street camera and then i
change cameras and then when she's going to the second barrel
i shoot with the long lens and i
did this for every competitor for a while the ones that i was
set up for and it was nice to go back and

(51:38):
forth and not have to worry about you know i was still
shooting action with my street camera and one
of my arty pictures i got out of it was from that
that effort so there
was that and then in the evenings
there are these dances it's like a barn dance
there's a semi trailer that's got a fancy electronic

(51:59):
stage where the bands come and play and
the people who dance they actually dance on the
ground on the on the grass in front of
the semi and they're not in front of the semi in front of the stage and then
there's this giant like a marquee tent beer tent beer garden thing that's behind
it and so people come out to dance and whatever and there's all these lights

(52:22):
and stuff and so you have this kind of atmosphere this kind of like dance floor.
Cabaret atmosphere going on and so i have my street camera and i'm like i'm
gonna shoot this i'm gonna shoot the people dancing and then i got it i thought
was a really nice picture of the people dancing there was kind of arty that
was like a kind of a american documentary style kind of image of,

(52:45):
you know, Western culture.
And so the lesson for me is, you know,
in this or the epiphany in the last couple of weeks thinking about
this was yes i'm gonna do the
the the action and the sport thing like
i want to do so because that's somehow rather that's important to me and where

(53:06):
the inspiration came was the sports illustrated olympic issues yeah and the
camera ads yeah all it's everything man i would just i in the 70s you know this
It started from the 76 Summer Games,
which were in Montreal, right? So there was a Canadian connection.
That's where I started seeing the camera ads and then 80 and then 84, the LA Games.

(53:29):
And then, you know, it's just, there are all of these wonderful Sports Illustrated
magazines and some of the stories you heard about the photographers shooting them.
I met Bill Epridge and Neil Leifer at the Calgary Olympics.
No, not Walter Yost. No, I never did meet him. Yeah, I met him. i
like walter yost because he seems kind of defeatist doesn't he

(53:50):
really oh i didn't there's there's a
anyway there's we can talk about those guys later but
i got to meet some of the couple of these guys and and
so the sports photography somehow holds some interest
in me so i still like to to to shoot it but there's the there's already part
of me anyway so the lesson i learned was you can still you can kind of have

(54:12):
your cake and eat it too a little bit that i that yeah i do definitely think
when I'm shooting with the long lens that I'm,
doing some editorial work or something for a magazine is what it seems like.
I got to produce something.
And then at night or when I'm walking around and I'm not shooting the actual
competition then I can go back to my street ethos and you can work in the different modes.

(54:38):
And I never really made that connection, made that.
Thought process until after I came back and I looked at the pictures,
I'm like, yes, I think I could do that.
But had you ever had that opportunity where you were doing two,
like two different camera styles?
I mean, so you had your cannons, but you know, you weren't, it doesn't sound

(54:59):
like you were doing that with your Canon cameras.
No, with the Canon stuff, I was, that was all the buildup to the book.
Book so i was definitely it was
it was a hybrid of i've already i
called it already action right my pictures in the book i'm trying to make it
they're specific those pictures were taken specifically to be put in a book

(55:21):
this one i'm just shooting like they're they should be in a magazine or something
or just for my own did i capture the moment did i make it an interesting
is the structure of the image interesting and so
on you know you're making a good case to
have multiple cameras yeah and so and that's
what that's why it was so acute or whatever you want to call it like

(55:42):
why it was so in my consciousness was i did have this new gear it was a distraction
i was learning how to use it i was having some positive results and in my mind
thinking that i wasn't putting enough effort in in the back of my mind to this
arty stuff that I like to do.
And as it turned out, I really needn't have worried.

(56:04):
And that's an argument for you to just let yourself, put yourself in that state of flow.
Because there's a lot of things happened on that weekend where I took myself out of the flow.
I had the camera kind of jam on me because I didn't upgrade the firmware.
And so there was a kind of a bad interaction where it locked.
I got a red light. So I went back to our trailer and I powered it off and took

(56:28):
the lens off, powered it on, got it going again, and then came back.
And I was fine. It was just one little hiccup.
But it kind of took me out of the flow right right so there
was that and then there was me kind of this low-grade worry about
was i going to capture everything i mean yeah the
the rodeo does happen over three days but
you know the individual competitions they're they're

(56:49):
there for half an hour three quarters of an hour and then they're gone right so
if you didn't get what you wanted and you hope the weather's going to work
out the next day you know you you do it's like anything else in
life you try and capture what's actually there and that way it's a
little little bit like a wedding but when they're 84 barrel
racers there's a pretty good chance you're going to get something you
know over the weekend there was quite a few no i

(57:12):
didn't really i didn't really concentrate on the barrel racers till the
last day there was maybe 20 of them and so
that was and that's where the the sunday that's
where i got the good picture of the black and white
picture that was more arty the woman
who's right the woman who's riding riding
the horse around the barrel yeah around the barrel that's a

(57:33):
great picture yeah thank you it's so sorry i'm
gonna go sideways again a little bit here but you know
again when your pictures pop up in a timeline and i don't i know it's not instagram
but like maybe i think you put them on facebook put them on vero too yeah yeah
i'm not scanning these things so much anywhere but like you're i will see a

(57:54):
picture before I read the name, just because the way you scroll.
And even though I know I, in my, probably in the back of my mind,
I know it's you because of the,
the subject matter, there's something very distinct about the way you.
Process the image that is like a signature style, which is really wonderful to notice.

(58:20):
Like that your picture says your name before I actually have to look at your
name. Right. Thanks, man.
Yeah. So keep doing that because actually there's no doubt you're going to keep
doing it because I know this with all your black and white pictures.
But that's what it is. Particularly the rodeo pictures because I developed a
workflow that was specific. I can share a little bit about that.

(58:41):
So at the Calgary Stampede, when you win an event and it's like,
I don't know, a 50 or a hundred thousand dollar check, you get it,
but you also get a bronze statue that is depiction of your event.
So if it's a saddle bronc ride, it's a actual bronze horse with a rider on it,
you know, caught in a arty position, you know, and it's Western art.

(59:06):
But it's polished bronze so if you go back and you look at my pictures i process
the color channels in such a way to make the horse look a bit like it's made
out of metal that's part of my really.
Yeah so there's a there's a super reality can be done or is you not want to give that up,

(59:30):
or but generically i don't know if you can i mean generically
it's manipulation of the orange and yellow color channels
and dehays interesting okay all
right yeah it's now that you
say that about the bronzing i
i see that in a lot of your other pictures too like there's some kind of sheen

(59:50):
yeah ness to it and it's not overdone at all there's a i mean i the reason why
i notice it because it's in your street photography as well sometimes and some
right some of the stuff So it's not just the horse that you're getting that bronzy look to.
I mean, you might not be doing the exact same thing. I think that workflow came
from the working on the book though.
Yeah. Okay. I think if you look at my street pictures before the book and then

(01:00:13):
after, I think it was really developed during that.
Was that just experimentation on your part? Yeah. Like, really?
I wanted to make it look better than it, I wanted to make it look better.
Not supernatural, but, and this is where the conversation with Jeffrey is,
was really good because his images were not just discovery.
Like I said, they were creations. They weren't just discoveries.

(01:00:37):
And that's what, that was what I discovered in that workflow was,
you know, I think of, you know, it's not just a straight shot.
When we had the dark room, we did whatever we could to make the picture look good.
If that meant dodging and burning or meant adjusting the contrast
or doing whatever so when i'm doing
these these arty sport rodeo pictures

(01:00:58):
i'm doing the same thing i'm not just taking a picture from
that's a straight straight ahead image of
what happened on the day in the moment but i'm also giving it some tweaks so
that it looks like a picture i would shoot that has a emotional depth to it
that i can take away from that moment that's It's closer to what I feel about

(01:01:20):
what I'm seeing when I'm shooting.
So it makes sense. It's a lot of words. It makes sense. And actually you're,
you're, I'm just aware of our time here, but I want to ask you this question.
Sure. This is, this is for my, this is for my students, I guess in a way,
because you'd actually be a good person to have to talk about this,
but I always try to instill at least in the basic photography classes.

(01:01:42):
And even in the smartphone photography class, even in the street,
like all my classes about processing the picture.
Like about this final step and to try to instill a little wisdom about processing.
Often I can't show them processing in the class because there's not enough time.
And the best I can do sometimes is show them like, well, you think about processing your picture.

(01:02:06):
This is what a before and after looks like, you know? So I have a shot of a
horned owl in Greenwood and then I process it and you could see the difference.
If you had to explain in a short time to someone who's new about processing,
in sort of the way you're talking about, you're doing it for yourself.
What would you say? Yeah.

(01:02:26):
To them about it being like so integral
to the process of the creative to the
creation of an image well i can't really speak to the actual workflow because
that's up to you i mean i can show you yeah yeah yeah but in terms of where
what processing does for me and what it did for me when i was in my 20s like

(01:02:48):
trying to get good was it takes the image from a representation of what
you're shot to a feeling in an emotional aspect that is you that comes out of the image.
So it becomes yours. It doesn't become this thing you picked out.
It's like, you know, the metaphor of the clay, right?
It's just, I can just give you the clay and hand it to you. And that's what it is.

(01:03:12):
But there there's, you got to put some creative energy into creating something
with it, you know, or Ansel Adams performance of the score, right?
If the, negative is the score the print
is the performance right it's the yeah you you
need there needs to be an emotional depth and and
that in my street pictures don't i don't think have that my sport pictures and

(01:03:36):
my particular my sport art pictures the rodeo stuff there's an emotional component
because even though i'm not a cowboy i wouldn't even know i don't even you know
i don't know the last time I was on a horse, I was maybe like eight.
It must've been a cute picture.
I'm sorry. I doubt it. I don't like hats, but there's, there's a,

(01:03:59):
a connection to my family and my father and all this kind of stuff there's,
I'm trying to do right by these people and these competitors, I guess.
And the, the speed and the grace and the violence of it, I want to, I want to depict,
in an emotional manner. And, you know, you could say there are tricks that I

(01:04:22):
make the horses look like bronze, but there, there's a, there's a,
I think there's something,
you know, that, that the sum is greater than the parts or whatever,
the, you know, I don't know that, that, that answered your question.
It's to turn it into something that's, that's yours.
Yeah. And you won't know what that is until you start tweaking.

(01:04:42):
And that's another thing I would say, you know, if, if it's your thing to completely,
To just take the saturation dial and move it all the way over,
and that turned your crank, that's you, right?
And that's what some people do. And it was a movement for a while.
And then we got tired of it. But, I mean, there are things you can do.

(01:05:02):
Start playing with the controls. Make it yours.
Yeah. Well, I think that's the part that I like to instill in them, to make it yours.
Because then I say, you know, you don't have to always take what the camera
gives you. but the way I'm hearing you interpret that is that it's,
you know, it can be yours.
Maybe if you're looking at it and you're happy with it from the camera,

(01:05:23):
then you've made that explicit choice. Like that's mine.
Yeah. But if not, then it's really the camera. The camera did the work in a sense.
It's a little, you know, over simplifying it, but the camera did the sense.
And now it's in your hands, right now it's the, the camera gave birth to it.
So now it's time for you to, to, to grow the, the child as it were. Right.

(01:05:48):
So, all right. Thank you. I'm going to replay this for myself so I can,
cause I want to incorporate that. So any, any final things about the.
No, there's just one other thing, sort of semi-related.
When we were having one of our, we have a supper meal.
We had dinner in this like beer garden area and we met these three young people
that were We're working on a ranch that was an hour away, a very remote area of the province.

(01:06:13):
They're from New Zealand and they were just taking in all this Canadian, Western, whatever.
Right. And they were horse people. They did work with horses in their own country
and they came and they were going to work for a woman who has a ranch and they're
going to work for four months and they're going to travel the world after that.
So their beginning of their adventure was to work on a working horse ranch. So.

(01:06:38):
All the kind of planets lined up and we have friends who are sponsors of the
rodeo and they got special seating up on a flatbed so they could watch the,
the, the chuckwagon races and the chariot races.
So they're elevated above the track so they can see, and it was fantastic.
So they were, they were hosted there and I had, you know, there was,

(01:07:00):
it was just a great vibe with them, with these young people and this us cranky campers, you know, and,
and so I said, you know, you know i'm gonna
put together an album on smug mug for you guys and i'll send
you the link and i want it to be something for you to remember us by and then
i was thinking you know i was concentrating on sports in this there's gonna
be a ton of really cool sport pictures that are not that didn't really make

(01:07:24):
the cut as my fancy art but that would certainly be good enough to show,
and so i don't know i had 20 or so images that i put together including the
arty ones if they They, you know, they were interested in those.
And then the group pictures of them standing beside the semi truck with the
ad for the, with the phone number with, you know, the waste management company

(01:07:48):
on it. It was all like very, it was all very authentic.
And it was like, you weren't, you weren't watching the background.
And yes, I was. Cause I wanted, I wanted to like, this is, this is authentic.
So, and so I sent that to them and they were very appreciative.
So, and it was like, it was, it was aside from my selfish artistic intentions

(01:08:09):
to create these images in that I could create these, if you want to call them gifts of,
of the stuff that I've done that serves another purpose.
So it's like, here's some pictures that you guys can have that the memory of,
of this Western, this Western life that I'm, and I'm sure that they were,

(01:08:30):
you know, they were touched by it.
So, and that, that, that made me feel good that there was another purpose for
my images other than me just trying to hammer away at Lightroom and then pushing
them out one at a time on social media and waiting for those people to love me.
You know it was not that it was like well it's
not that's not like that but you know what i

(01:08:52):
mean well maybe it is well maybe it is no i'm saying you said it so it must
be some reality in there it's somewhere in there yeah yeah yeah how can you
do that more often and that's not a question to answer now but to like instead
of the social media you know like new new new push push push,
push to do a version of what you're talking about, like the connection with

(01:09:15):
these people and the whole thing.
I really like how this story went from the equipment to, to where you...
Just talked about what the final result was.
Yeah, it was big. I think there are some big lessons for me,
which I'm still thinking about.
Like, you know, some of these, some of these ideas and I call them epiphanies,
you know, came just in these last couple of weeks.

(01:09:36):
And I'm, and I did express before the show started that kind of thankful that
we waited as long as we did because I had some more thinking to do about it.
Hmm. Yeah. So. Do you write this stuff down? I mean, how do you remember your,
your epiphany? Or you just like remember them and.
No. Have you kept track of. Looking at the images, I guess. Oh,

(01:09:58):
so that's going to trigger. So those, those, yeah.
And I, I do like my Flickr stream is sort of my backup of my, my JPEG save folder.
So, you know, I can go back. You just go back and review that.
I just go back and review that.
And then I'll maybe, oh, that picture didn't work. I'll take it out or whatever.
Or it's where I kind of ruminate and then I will post to Instagram and Vero,

(01:10:21):
the ones that are a little bit better than I think might generate some interest.
I like how you post stuff too, because you are not like rushing home.
Generally. I've noticed you will put stuff up sometimes quick,
but you, you will say it's not processed, but you'll, you'll share that with
us in the unusual collective early edits.
I call them. Yeah. Yeah. But I noticed that you keep reserved and then you sort of dole out over time.

(01:10:45):
Time so i can see that you're spending time thinking about
the images and not in a rush to get stuff out
right and it's also geez you know i wish i could have i don't know maybe i don't
know if this is gonna be possible but maybe one day i could have you as like
a virtual guest in one of my classes to explain some of this stuff or just to
sort of you know so that's anyway i'm just thinking off the top of my head they're

(01:11:08):
really like your discuss offline sure yeah i don't know how we can do that.
It's just the, there's some part of this that you're.
I, I don't think I was in this position either before I met you.
I mean, you know, I'm coming from commercial photography, so I'm not really
thinking about the pictures in the same way.
And I, in a sense, I've sort of started learning again about photography.

(01:11:30):
Maybe not exactly, but you know what I mean? Like to get out of a commercial
sense of, and I'm still stuck in that sometimes it still creeps in.
Like I'm doing a vertical picture.
Well, how's that going to look as a cover? No, no, no. It's not.
No, it's not a cover. Well, I have some biases like that too,
but. But yeah, but I think for me, it was like being a kid and knowing that

(01:11:50):
the prints were sort of expensive and you, and, and the prints be kind of came precious things.
Yeah. And it's one thing I appreciate old other photographers who do gold gilding
or they put it in a fancy frame or they do something.
They turn their images or the way they post process them, they turn them into
precious objects. There are a couple of guys in Calgary specifically that I'm

(01:12:15):
thinking of that do that.
And it's not just that they take this cool picture, but they turn it into an art object.
And I thought when I was a kid and I held these prints, I'm like, this is so cool.
I think there's a part of that that's still in me that wants to post this digital
file as something that has some intrinsic value.

(01:12:36):
You like there's not quite a precious
thing in the way these other guys do it but it's something that has
some kind of value and that's why i like to
maybe post them one at a time and we're getting into my subconscious here
maybe we should stop you can already hear the they're coming after you but they're
coming out there yes that's my ride yeah that's right we're all dressed in white

(01:12:58):
how far is bellevue from your place wow even bellevue's got a international,
national representation.
It was in all the comedies. It's Bellevue. It's all the comedies.
You know what it is, Barney Miller. That's what it is. Barney Miller.
I knew you were going to say Barney Miller.
I used to stay up with my mom late on Saturday night and watch Barney Miller.
I'm going to send you to the funny farm. That's right.

(01:13:20):
That's not very PC these days, I think.
It's late tonight. I don't care. Funny farm.
We come from a different generation, really, to say funny farm.
Not hatch. That's my favorite. Yeah, the padded room. Actually,
they did have padded rooms. Okay, I'm not going to get into that.
I think we've covered a lot. I didn't expect this conversation to go like this.

(01:13:43):
I'm really happy. Good. Me too.
Yeah. It was great talking to you like this. So where are they finding you in the world these days?
Let's see. Where are they finding me? I got to find where they can find me.
I don't know where they're finding me. They're finding me. They're finding me at Bellevue.
They're finding me. You're finding me on Vero and Twitter slash X at WRosinPhoto.

(01:14:06):
That's at W-R-O-S-I-N-Photo.
On Instagram, I'm WardRosinFineArt. on Facebook. You can find me at WardRosenPhoto.
I have a website that desperately needs some attention. But my blog post is there.
It's at Rosen.ca, R-O-S-I-N.ca and our unofficial sponsor is Ornis Photo,

(01:14:27):
where I sell 7 Artisans lenses and lens adapters of various types.
Mostly for Fuji X and Sony E-mount.
What about you, my friend? Well, before that, I was using your macro lens that you sold me.
That's 60. That's a weird little bird. I kind of like that lens.

(01:14:47):
Yeah, with that weird little extension tube that sticks out,
it kind of looks like a, well, it gets noticed. It gets noticed.
Uh, where am I? Did you ask? I asked, where are you? Where am I? I'm right here.
And you're there, but I'm also on Vero at AM Rosario, Instagram, AM Rosario photo.

(01:15:09):
My website also in need of desperation cleanup is amrosario.com.
But, uh, I'll add my Facebook. My Facebook is Rosario photo.
Our website is streetshots.photography, which also needs updating.
And, uh, but subscribe to our sub stack newsletter. We've been getting a lot
of subscriptions lately from, I said this last time, and I'll say it again,

(01:15:30):
I've been getting, you know, little drips and drabs from a recommendation from Barry and X,
our brother podcaster in the Candid Frame. So he recommended.
Yeah. So anyway, subscribe to our newsletter. I think I got one coming out soon.
I feel it coming out. at streetshots.substack.com and leave us a voicemail at

(01:15:53):
speakpipe.com slash streetshots.
And if you want to buy us a coffee, help support the show, buy me a coffee at
buymeacoffee.com slash Antonio Rosario.
And the last thing I wanted to say, which I forgot to put before this was in
the way that, uh, Jeffrey sent us his book and then we had him on the show.
I would like to open this up to listeners, if you've got a book or a zine or

(01:16:16):
something, if you're up to sending it, a website, send it to us and we'd like to look at it.
And I'm really into this idea of people who are listening to our show to talk
to them. Like I would love to give back in that.
So in the way that Jeffrey is a listener and then we had him on the show,
if anybody's up for that, you know, drop us a line and, you know,

(01:16:38):
let us see your pictures and we'd love to have you on and talk to.
Music.
Uh, you know, we're not just about, you know, ourselves.
So anyway, thank you. Uh, and Ward, thank you for tonight.
This was, uh, it was great to talk to you for tonight. It was a pleasure,
my friend. Yeah. I'm glad we started off earlier too these days because I am wired now.
Music.
I don't have to, I don't have to go to sleep right now.

(01:17:03):
But yeah. And, uh, I will let, uh, I'll let you go and I'll let everybody else
go. So we'll see you in a couple of weeks, everybody.
Music.