The First 10 Seconds

There must be an incredible sense of hiraeth for a baby when it is born.  Perhaps, also, a complete misunderstanding of what has just occurred.  From the comfort and calm of the womb to the bright lights and noise of real life.

Birth itself if ephemeral.  The story that continues thereafter, lasts forever.  At the moment of a birth, love is created and bonds that can never be broken are generated with the ironic breaking of the physical ties between mother and child.

I spend a great deal of my time photographing people.  A majority of it as a storytelling wedding photographer, but I have a deep rooted passion for simply documenting people, being people.

I don't have the opportunity, nor perhaps skill, to shoot the types of beautiful stories that my Kage buddies shoot on a regular basis but when I can shoot true moments, like these, I feel rejuvenated.

This is The First 10 Seconds of a life.  Actually, not "a" life, but "Lenny's" life.  

Every human being is born naked to the world and equal.  

Our 24 Hour rolling news channels will have us think that mankind is doomed, and good humanity can't be derived from all the murder, hate and violence (apart from when the commercial breaks are on of course).

Actually, I think the world is safe.  We are a people of love.  We are a people of emotion and we are a good people that bring, other good people into this world.

All images shot on X-T2 with XF 23mm F2 Lens.

Partial

BY JONAS RASK

We want to evolve
We want to keep pushing
We want to achieve
We want to move

Us and them

We require
We do
We try
We might

Achieve through partial reflection

Last Tournament

BY BERT STEPHANI

2 days, 8 games and then it was over. The seemingly endless season of my son's soccer team but also the team in his current configuration. Next month will mark the start of the preparations for a new season, with a new team. But first there's one month of soccerless peace and quiet. 

7X014

It's My BirthdayKevin Mullins | GFX 50S, 1/125 sec at f2.8, ISO 160 (GF 63mm f2.8 R WR)

It's My Birthday

Kevin Mullins | GFX 50S, 1/125 sec at f2.8, ISO 160 (GF 63mm f2.8 R WR)

OPPOSITEsJonas Rask | X-Pro2 Graphite - Mitakon 35mm - f/0.95 - 1/500 sec - ISO200

OPPOSITEs

Jonas Rask | X-Pro2 Graphite - Mitakon 35mm - f/0.95 - 1/500 sec - ISO200

By the lakeBert Stephani | GFX50S - Minolta Rokkor 200mm - f/3.5 - 1/1000 sec - ISO100

By the lake

Bert Stephani | GFX50S - Minolta Rokkor 200mm - f/3.5 - 1/1000 sec - ISO100

Vertical FireRobert Catto | X-Pro 1, 1/300th at f/8, 800ISO (35mm f/1.4R)

Vertical Fire

Robert Catto | X-Pro 1, 1/300th at f/8, 800ISO (35mm f/1.4R)

VapeDerek Clark | X70 -1/500 sec - f/8 - ISO250 (18.5mm) 

Vape

Derek Clark | X70 -1/500 sec - f/8 - ISO250 (18.5mm)

 

YARD PARTYPatrick La Roque | X100F, 1/170 sec at f7.1, ISO 400.

YARD PARTY

Patrick La Roque | X100F, 1/170 sec at f7.1, ISO 400.

Seclusion//Sincerety

by Jonas Rask

Narration is linear. Narration starts and ends. 

Set intro. 
Set exit. 

All thoughts and actions in between are fluid. Up for grabs. Interpretable.

In the greatest narrative of all, some seek companionship. Some seek to share their path. To reflect and receive. To give way for others to shape the interpretable.

But not all. Some confine or expand to seclusion. They administer stories in solitude and expel excess. 
Parallel are the entities and parallel are the narratives, but the frame is set

Set intro
Set exit

Eduard

By BERT STEPHANI

He kills animals for a living almost daily, he's loud and outspoken without the ability to be politically correct or be tamed. Those traits earned Eduard a couple of minutes every week on a national television show and made him into a bit of a celebrity in Holland. He has gotten more time on air and, became one of the protagonists on a theatrical released documentary and reaches a lot of people through his Facebook page and YouTube channel. The camera loves his rugged appearance and the microphone hangs on to every one-liner. The media likes him to be controversial, wild and weird. Make no mistake, he is all that but there's more. His words and actions come from a deep place in which the media has little interest but I do.

Eduard and I don't agree on everything but we both enjoy the conversation anyway, wether it's laughter around a campfire or whispers in a makeshift blind.  He is the prototype of the rugged outdoorsman, you know, the kind they don't make anymore. He kills geese with his bare hands without flinching, lights a fire in seconds and doesn't use a fork if his hands can do the job. At the same time he is a renaissance man, a philosopher, a student, a professor and a gentle soul. The word "paradox" suits him very well.

I've always been attracted to people who have more layers than just a superficial shell. I believe most people have more layers but unfortunately not everyone is comfortable showing what's under their skin, although that's where I believe the truth lies. I'm thinking about doing more of these photo stories on remarkable people. Let me know if you think if that's a good plan. (Shot with a preproduction X100F and the GFX50S with the 63mm)

MATIERE GRISE

By Vincent Baldensperger

Gommer son image et ses signatures individuelles, changer de peau. Ne subsiste que l'enveloppe brute sans artifices. Tête, cœur, fond, derrière la matière grise sommes-nous encore à l'image d'un parfum, complexités intérieures aux apparences parfois trompeuses ?   

The Gentle Breeze Of The Blast

Photography & Text by Derek Clark

I had planned to follow-up my H2O post with another elements based piece about Air and decided to shoot something at Whitelee Windfarm on the 23rd of May. But that morning I woke up to the news that a suicide bomber had killed 19 people and injured many more at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester (UK). More details found their way into each news bulletin as the morning progressed and the death total rose to 22.

I eventually got to the windfarm around 1:30pm and decided to listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto's latest album ‘Async’ as I began to photograph my subject. Ryuichi is in the middle of a battle with cancer and this album is heavily influenced by life and death. A perfect choice of music for this place and time. The mixture of vast open space with the eerie sounds of Async, mixed with the noise of the turbines that crept past my earphones. Then track 8 'Fullmoon' started to play and the voice of American author Paul Bowles spoke these words...

"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really! How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood? Some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty, yet it all seems limitless."

Some of the victims of the Manchester bombing were children, the youngest being just eight years old. They'll never get the chance to look back on a special afternoon of their childhood. Likewise the countless others that have felt the wrath of western drones. It's all too easy after a devastating event like this, to see everything as good or bad, black or white. But there is no black and there is no white, only grey.

All pictures were shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the Lensbaby Composer Pro with Edge 80 optic. I used the Acros+R film simulation and applied a tone curve (S Curve), plus Clarity in Lightroom to the JPEG's. I also applied a vignette to some of the pictures. I shot RAW files too, but didn't use them.

Books & Memories

By Kevin Mullins

Books are an incredibly important part of my own personal documentary making.

Simple snaps of the children, the family, my everyday life.  Stuff.

The photography is the beginning of the story that, I believe, should always end up in a tactile print.

It's easy for us to become encumbered by new technology.  Megabytes and Megapixels.

I'm living in an industry where the next big thing is always around the corner.  Yet, to me at least, the next best thing is the next picture I print.

When was the last time you made an heirloom (for that is what these are) for your children?  And your children's children? Or perhaps, even..... just for yourself.

“Love people, and use things - because the opposite never works.”
— Minimalism Movement

GFX 50S: Three Views

The Hush

by Patrick LA ROQUE

It's been two months since I purchased my GFX kit: a GFX 50S, the GF 63mm f2.8 and two batteries. The bare essentials. In this time I've been puzzled, astonished, dazzled and left wanting. I've equally questioned my skills and felt I could do no wrong—sometimes within minutes. Needless to say: it's been a ride.

My two partners here are likely answering this same question in their own way: why, after extolling the virtues of a smaller, quieter system for the past 5 years, did I invest in this camera? The answer is one I still struggle with, because it has complicated my life to a certain extent. Now, before every single shoot, I find myself evaluating a GFX vs X-series equation: which one fits the job? Which is the best tool? Do I need that GFX resolution/look or is it overkill? Do I bring one or both? The truth is no one has ever criticized my X-series images in terms of resolution or IQ. I've never had a client raise an eyebrow at my tools of choice either—quite the opposite, actually. So why? Short answer: because when the stars align with this kit...I get chills.

The first image I shot with my own GFX 50S was a quick grab of my daughter Anaïs in our home studio: one cheap speedlight in a softbox, nothing fancy. And when I loaded the file I just couldn't stop staring at the screen: the results had a quality I'd never achieved before. I don't mean technical quality or resolution or sharpness...I'm talking about character. A perfectly subjective and undefinable set of various elements, coming together in one frame. Keywords started bouncing around in my head—fluid, organic, filmic...A quiet transcendence.

And that, right there, is the reason.

The GFX 50S and GF 63mm resolve a crazy amount of detail—without question. I'm sure landscape photographers will drool over what they can achieve. But for me the appeal lies at the other end of the spectrum, in the wide open territory of subject isolation and how those specific transitions are rendered. Because it's not just sharp vs blurry but the dissolution of one into the other...almost like brush strokes. It's also the way textures appear, the grain and structure of skin and hair when shooting portraits. I'm still smitten every time I pick up my X-series cameras. I still love how the lenses look. But the GFX pulls me in because it's different. Because—as I've written elsewhere—there's a hush over these pictures.

This kit was a business investment and I feel extremely fortunate that it's already paid for itself. But this is a long term approach, one I'll be evaluating on a case by case basis with every job that comes along—because it's a new point of view, not just equipment. I've always believed that our tools guide us as much as we guide them. That we're shaped by what we use and how we use it—software, hardware, cameras, lenses; all of it. It's all building blocks.

So this is another brick in the wall—to paraphrase a few rock and roll legends. A means of expression, a new path to walk.
A reason to explore and forge ahead.

Calm

by bert stephani

I like to think I was in the meeting where the idea of a digital medium format Fujifilm camera for under 10K with a standard lens was first mentioned. I'll never know if it really was the first mention but judging by the surprised look on some Japanese faces, it wasn't something they were considering at that point. A couple of years and lots of rumours later, I held a prototype of the GFX50S in my hand at Photokina 2016. The gearhead in me was excited but as a photographer I wasn't sure it was for me. After all, the small and light X-series cameras and lenses have been the perfect fit for my work, and they still are. 

Everything that Patrick wrote above sounds very familiar to me and we've had lots of conversations before, during and after making the decision to invest in the GFX system. We even went for the exact same setup. It was also my initial gut reaction to the files I made with a prototype camera as a test, that made me want to investigate if the system would benefit my work. 

My approach was twofold, it has a business component and it's about subtlety. Let's start with the latter. I feel like my work is in a transitional phase at the moment. It's not that I want to do something completely different but I've noticed some substantial shifts lately. The subjects and the intent are the same but instead of making bold statements, I seem to be looking to tell more subtle stories. I believe in letting your vision dictate equipment choices. Get the tool that allows you to tell your story best. The GFX's big sensor gives me more resolution, sharpness, dynamic range and overall detail. If my camera captures more detail, I can tell a more detailed story. 

That's all very nice but I'm not some kind of rich dentist, I'm the prototype starving photographer who owns already way too many cameras and has way too little money in the bank. I'm not much of a businessman but even I know that an investment is only an investment if it makes you more money than you've spent on it. Last year I made the decision to start targeting higher end clients and try to get more jobs that require a small amount of great pictures rather than a bunch of reasonable pictures. I wouldn't mind if this transition went a bit faster but I'm slowly getting more of those jobs. And I feel that in many cases a digital medium format camera can provide my clients with more quality. The X-series cameras have never been a limiting factor but it may be worth for me to try something that gives me even better image quality. And the pressure of making that big investment back is a kick in the butt to go after those higher end jobs even more. 

I've rented digital medium format cameras before when the job required it. I could always make it work but never found it an enjoyable experience, particularly when you're not in a controlled environment. And that's where most of my shooting happens, that's where I want to be. A week with a test camera revealed that the GFX is without doubt the most user friendly medium format camera I've ever used. But it does require a slower, more methodical approach than my other cameras. I did a lot of testing and used the GFX on a few jobs since I bought it. In one of my conversations with Patrick I said something like "If the stars align, it's magic. I just have a hard time aligning those stars". I'm still figuring it out. Sometimes it feels like I have to learn photography from scratch, but more and more I get the hang of it. I'm also learning the limitation of this system and with that comes a renewed appreciation for the X-series cameras. They are really complimentary systems. 

I'm trying to incorporate the GFX in my way of working and in my style, but I'm also learning to adapt my workflow to get the most out of this camera. Sometimes it's a frustrating process but also an interesting one. I'm learning to work slower but better, use a tripod again, edit tighter, experiment with other software and new post processing techniques, ... So far the GFX has been an exciting force that pushes me to figure out ways to make me a better photographer.

Loud Subtleties

By Jonas Rask

I guess 3 separate sessions was what it took to convince me that the GFX was a camera for me after all.

I heard about the camera some months leading up to Photokina 2016. I was able to handle and briefly shoot the very early prototype GFX at that particular tradeshow for the first time. At that point in time, I was more than overly impressed by the technology of it all, but I held a firm belief that this was not a camera for me. Why would I ever need a digital medium format camera. The mere thought was insane to me.

Come december 2016 and I was given the task from Fujifilm Tokyo to shoot my usual packshots of their upcoming January launch spree of products. Of course this also included the GFX50s itself. I had it for about 2 weeks, all lenses and whistles in hand. And then I had to send it off. I used it to do some of the packshots, and that is definitely when I saw its potential. I still held my belief of not needing to buy one, but I had a weird feeling when I shipped it back.

A couple of months later I was tasked with testing out the GF23mm f/4 in Iceland. And this time around I really did not want to let this camera go when we came home. It had gotten to me. 

So I bought one!

And you know what? The decision wasn’t even hard. It was just something I really felt I needed to do. I was smitten! But I didn’t even know what I was so fond of. I couldn’t really express it in words at the time, and to be honest, I still have a hard time expressing why I needed to own the GFX. Putting my thoughts of this camera down in writing is even harder.  It seems superfluous for me, an enthusiast street and lifestyle photographer, to buy into a digital medium format system. Even more so because I have spent the last 5 years preaching to anyone who would listen, how fabulous the X-series is.
But that has not changed! The X-series cameras are the best cameras in the world if you ask me. They are perfect workhorses in small perfect packages, and having bought my own GFX has only made me appreciate these cameras even more. Obviously not because I dislike the GFX, but because it has given me a an appreciation of a wider palette of tools to work with.

I already wrote a review of the GFX back in January. It was even a very tech-ridden one. So I know all about the glorious high resolution sensor. I know about the insane sharpness. I know about the fantastic low light performance. I know about the superior tonality. But all those things don't even come close to describing why I bought this camera. Sure, its a neat party trick to zoom into a 100% crop of an image, but the novelty of this wears off rather quickly. As it very well should.

I think Bert and Patrick describe it so well. The GFX delivers something new and different. It gives way to subtleties. I get to dwell in details of images that I didn’t even know existed. Not resolution details, but transitional details. Details of color. Details of depth. 

When I look at images that I capture using the GFX it is very clear to me that there is something very different in the files. Showing these files online, compressed to death by horrendous algorithms, doesn’t always make much sense to me, but what does make sense are all the steps I take before uploading the finished image. Its a completely different spectrum of files to work with. And within this spectrum I find myself playing with completely new techniques as well as removing boundaries of what I feel I can achieve with my images.

I find myself going with more subtle toning and handling of the files from this camera. Maybe because I really don’t want to ruin all the little details. I really want to keep it pure, and keep it simple. I want to let the camera show its footprint rather than my post-processing software. I think the GFX is the next step for me. Not as a solitary system, but in parallel with my X-series cameras. They complement each other so well, and they play different roles in my photography.

It’s somewhat of a paradox. I invested in a camera that most consider to be all about loud and bold super-resolution, super-sharpness and super-IQ. I expected this. But what I have found is intimacy and subtlety. I have already felt and seen what it does to my images, and I’m super excited to explore this new expanded spectrum of photographic territory.