Nature Boy Navigating a Digital World

Slowly but surely, our humanity is being drained by smartphones, apps, digital devices, intelligent appliances, and artificially “intelligent” agents pretending to provide us with support.

Once upon a time, I was given the nickname Nature Boy. At the time, I was mortified because the troglodytes who gave me that name thought it was an insult. Close to sixty years later, I hold that nickname — and my connection to the natural world — close to my heart. I still scuba dive and enjoy photographing, painting, drawing, and writing about the natural world. It’s a great defense against losing our sense of who we are.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not rejecting the digital world entirely. Since I was one of those bastards who spent his career implementing this pan-Gaian digital monstrosity that we now have to live in, I feel somewhat responsible for the inhuman state of our world.

The best thing I think one can now do is keep one foot in the digital world — as a necessity for the everyday business of life — and one foot in the natural world — to make life worth living.

A Forest for the Trees

Fifteen years ago, traveling with an underwater camera meant carrying a dedicated camera system and housing along with all my scuba gear—two full suitcases and a carry-on bag. These days, the cost and aggravation of transporting that much equipment can pretty much ruin the idea of traveling at all.

Last year, I bought a DIVEVOLK SeaTouch 4 Max housing for my iPhone 15 Pro Max, along with a red filter and a few other little doohickeys I thought I might need. Compared with the cost of housing any of my APS-C, full-frame, or medium-format cameras, it was ridiculously inexpensive. So inexpensive that I reread the reviews to make sure the housing wasn’t made from Swiss cheese or cardboard.

Before 2023, I hadn’t been diving in eleven years. My dive gear—and I—were old, crusty, and out of practice. But getting back into the water with a camera was life-affirming and immediately comfortable, like getting back on a bicycle. By streamlining both my camera system and dive gear, I was also able to reduce the cost and stress of traveling to a single suitcase.

There was one problem.

It occurred to me that if the housing failed at depth, the phone inside it—my lifeline to the digital world and the place where I stored nearly everything I needed for the trip—would probably flood. Getting home could become interesting in all the wrong ways.

So I went to Back Market and bought a heavily used iPhone 14 Pro for about half the price of a new phone. That would become my underwater camera. If it didn’t work, I could still use the iPhone 15 and hope for the best.

Since buying the setup, I have photographed dives in the Florida caverns and on the reefs of Bonaire and Dominica, with no complaints whatsoever.

When I made this photograph, there was a fair amount of sargassum in the water, and visibility was cloudy. The original image was drained of color and predominantly blue. It was pleasing, but not quite the photograph I wanted.

The pilings already felt less like a human structure than an underwater forest, with the divers drifting between them like unfamiliar wildlife. I converted the photograph to black and white, then added a little clarity and contrast in Lightroom. The monochrome treatment separated the light, sediment, divers, and encrusted columns more clearly while preserving the murky atmosphere that first attracted me.

Although I had brought both a video light and a red filter, I found myself loving the black-and-white renderings from this location. Removing the color seemed to make the underwater world stranger, quieter, and somehow more timeless.

All in all, the DIVEVOLK housing—and my decision to trust an Apple phone as an underwater camera—has been one of my best photographic purchases in recent years. I love the results I am getting, and DIVEVOLK is firmly on my radar as I continue rebuilding my underwater photography system.

The Camera You Have With You #1 – FujiFilm X-E4

Recently, I traveled to Portugal with a medium format film camera – the classic Mamiya Six – arguably one of the best analog medium-format film cameras in existence. But because it is a fairly large, heavy camera, and it’s not weather resistant, there were times when I left it in my room and fell back to a ‘lesser’ camera – my backup on the trip – The FujiFilm X-E4.

I put the word ‘lesser’ in quotes because I don’t believe that the Fuji is lesser than the Mamiya, rather than just different – like Buddy Elf being ‘special.’ As it turns out, even if he was a lousy toymaker, Buddy was pretty awesome in his own right.

Yes, the Fuji is less expensive than the Mamiya, and it’s not up to the potential image quality of the Mamiya in optimal light, but it is still a competent and capable tool and preferable to the Mamiya in low light, for rapid shooting, in bad weather, and if you are already loaded with a lot of other heavy stuff to carry around. In this instance, I needed to pull off a quick photo before Mrs. Doubtfire, (seen in the upper right window), moved out of frame. If I was shooting the Mamiya, I wouldn’t have had enough time framing and focusing before she would be gone.

A lot of camera snobs might look down at the inexpensive and tiny-but-mighty X-E4 and the kit lens I had on it for this shot, but I couldn’t be happier with the photo, specs and price be damned. Use the right tool for the job, and remember that the right tool is the camera that you have with you, be it medium format, crop format, or even a phone camera.

About this Photo: Camera: Fujifilm X-E4, Lens: FujiFilm 18-55mm f/2.8–4.0 R LM OIS. Location: Lisbon, Portugal.

Gathering Winter’s Light

Gathering Winter’s Light – On the topic of Winter’s Light, be they hyggily candles (Google Hyyge -Denmark), a fireplace, or Xmas lights, there is place that I go to as a pilgrimage every winter – It’s called Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.  It was, at one time, the private greenhouse of Pierre DuPont, who was kind of like the Elon Musk or maybe Jeff Bezos of his time. 

I like to go there, especially in the Winter, because I love the light and I can recharge from the Seasonal Blues. Making this photo was important for me because I’ll be taking this camera and lens with me on a trip next month and I rarely shoot wide-angle, medium-format film, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go.  I like the immediate feedback of digital, but I really have to up my game to get this photo and have it work out, first shot, out-of-camera.  And of course, this lighting is kind of tricky, even with digital cameras – so much is backlit and in shadow.  

Having spent the past year assisting in a darkroom, I feel that, with this exercise,  I should only be allowed to dodge and burn, and tweak contrast if I want to stay true to my film discipline and get ready for the trip.  I know that ‘should’ is a dirty word from a creative standpoint, and we have so many new tools in our artistic kit since the days of Ansel Adams, but I also think that should is a magic word when practicing the discipline of photo purism and trying to hone one’s abilities, in camera. 

About This Photo:

Camera: Mamiya 6 Rangefinder, Lens: Mamiya 50mm f/3.5 (24mm full-frame equivalent)
Film: Kodak TriX 400 ISO

We Could All Use a Little Light

Here’s a dispatch from the Don’t Try This at Home Department: I’m a sucker for people in wild costumes doing crazy things. Hence, this photo. This is Michelle Yeager, and awesome fire breather – performing at a Krampuslauf event in North Philadelphia, a few years back. It is one of my favorites because of the work it took getting the right balance and detail of the fire without it being too bright and therefore blowing out the details. It started as big white blob of fire, but with the magic of lightroom and RAW file, rather than a JPG, I was able to coax detail out of flames that look, to me, like an angry universe, or maybe the interior of a sunspot. Yes, I like to shoot film, but there are certain things that are best done with digital, and shooting fire breathers is one of them. And also – use a long lens. No sense singing your eyebrows, even if it is for a good photo.

Weeping Sunflowers at Solstice

Well, it’s that time of the year again. The shortest days bring the least amount of light into our lives and most everything that grew over the summer is dead, sleeping or suicidal – like these poor, pathetic sunflowers. Looking at them, I wanted to crowd fund some therapy for them, but instead I did what any heartless photographic voyeur would do, I exploited their trauma with a picture.
When I pressed the shutter button, I knew that the image would be backlit, but I expected more color in the image from Kodak Portra 400, which is usually so delightfully vibrant. I was surprised and happy however, that the suggestion of color, rather than an overt blast of chroma, adds to the sense of the loss of light in the world at this time of year.
Shooting film on antique cameras never ceases to bring surprises and joy for this camera geek.

About the photo: This was taken with a Plaubel Makina 67 medium format film camera on fresh Kodak Portra 400. The camera is a unique joy to shoot with and the f/2.8 lens is unheard of in such a small portable package.

Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown

During the Pandemic, I enlisted (threatened, bribed, cajoled) my daughter into posing for me for an online photography class I was taking with Rick Wright, a brilliant photography instructor who teaches at the Fleisher Art Memorial and the Halide Project, both located in Philadelphia.  The plan for the shoot was to photograph my daughter in her devil’s costume backed up by her minions – her many stuffed animals.  She was doing a great job for me, mugging for the camera, and throwing wicked, crazy looks that could give Wednesday Addams a run for her money, and we got a several excellent shots, so we relaxed for a bit and took a break.

While we were relaxing, I was standing by the camera and she threw this look, a bit exhausted, a little hot from the costume, and I had to press the shutter.  And there she was, the ruler of Hades, deep, dark and brooding.  Brava, to my great actress!!

About the Photo:  Digital. Single, overhead spotlight.  Some filters and added clarity.  Jaundice slider +3. It’s not normally my style to spend a lot of time in post, but this shot was just too much fun to make utterly creepy.

The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates

Sometimes the winter kicks you in the butt and you just can’t – or don’t want to – get outside to get your creative on.  My creativity definitely diminishes in direct proportion to how much I am shivering, or if my fingers are too numb to press the shutter button.  And since my creative starts with photography, and I’m not about to brave ice, snow, slush, sleet, psychotic Philadelphia drivers, and that special hell known as the Schuylkill Expressway in order to get to a decent photo location – or my screen print studio as a backup –  I just have to get even more creative to come up with in-the-home photo activities.

The concept for this shot was introspection.  My model was a one-inch-tall plastic action figure – the character was Too-Ticky from the Finnish/Swedish Moomin-Troll universe created by the late Tov Jansson.  At the time of this shot, as I was pondering retirement from my tech career. I was trying to capture the feeling of my state of mind – in essence where I wanted to go and where I had been.  Could I achieve my goal of re-inventing myself as a photographer and artist in my sixties?  Could I somehow fine relevance is such a young and cutting-edge industry?  This is what I wanted to express with the photo.

Black and white was definitely the way to go here – and I wanted it to be dark, moody and dramatic. It would be a bonus if I could throw in a bit of rim-lighting because I love it. 

About this Photo:    This photo required: 1. The edge of a jacuzzi tub.  2. A couple of black fleece throws. 3.  A Too-Ticky Moomin Troll action figure. 4. A desk lamp.  5.  A digital camera.  6. Five minutes from concept to cleanup.    I love film, but when I am experimenting with lights, digital provides the feedback and immediacy that I need to work out the niggles in a shoot.  Film is awesome, but the name of my site is ‘Film Sometimes,’ not ‘Film Always.’ I was able to adjust the dark framing around the borders, so as to give the subject the illusion of constraint and in the end, I was not unhappy with the shot.

Photo Gallery: Things That Drip, Grow and Bark

This gallery is from a test of a film camera and lens to see if it was worth taking on trip to Yellowstone National Park. You have to click ‘Continue Reading’ in order to see all of the photos.
It’s best to extensively test a lens and camera combination prior to taking it somewhere important or where you might not have backup in case the combination is disappointing. From these tests, I found that I was happy enough with the Nikon F100 film camera with the Nikkor 28-200mm G ED f3.5-5.6 ED, F-Mount lens. I took gallery of shots was taken at home and at a local park just a few miles away. It includes some of my favorite subjects; Things that drip, grow and bark.

About the Photos: The flower shots were boceh/lens blur tests which came out better than expected considering that it is a very inexpensive (relatively), compact and lightweight superzoom lens – what I would usually consider a recipe for mediocrity. But in order to be outstanding, you have to stand out. And the separation in the flower shot, between the subject and the background, is excellent. Again, much better than expected. This lens is a winner.

I also love the Nikon F100 for vacation film photography – when you cannot go back to reshoot a subject later – because, while you can use it on full manual, you also have the option to run it in aperture priority or full auto, a luxury I sometimes need with wildlife and street scenes. The only downside of this camera, for me, is that it weighs in a little heavy. But if you throw a nifty fifty or a lighter weight prime lens on it, it really isn’t that bad.
The film used, Ilford HP5 400 – showed some lovely grain and contrast. The water shots – my favorite go-to subject matter these days is anything water. There are a couple of indirect portraits in here, to further test the capability of the setup, and of course, the dog. A dog with human eyes, I get told often. All in all, a good workout for the lens and camera, which I did indeed take with me to Yellowstone, with good results.

I love testing ‘new-to-me’ film cameras.

Maybe There’s a Story

If photos were superheros, their superpower would be their ability to convey a story at a glance. On a cloudy day, at the ‘Jersey Shore’ I caught this bike, the sandals, and the handful of cloud bathers out in the sand. Which one rode in on the bike? Where did they ride in from? Was this a daily pilgrimage or a one day bike rental? What is the narrative here?

I like to capture scenes like this and hold on them. Save them for a cold, cloudy winter’s day – to unwrap them and use their heat, as needed.

About the Photo: Taken with the venerable Fuji X-T2 – which I feel is the perfect APS-C camera for me. It drives like a Porsche, has every control you need on a dial right in front of you, and still after 7 years, takes photos that make me very, very proud. I’ll upgrade when this one falls apart thank you. I paired the camera with Fuji’s XF 35mm f/2 lens, (50mm equivalent), which is also quite wonderful. A great walk around and travel lens, which is to say small, light and visually awesome.

“Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”