Digital vs. Film

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Has the ease of digital photography eroded the craft?

AZ Highways CoverThe September 2008 issue of Arizona Highways magazine proclaims that it is “The Photo Issue.” If you know Arizona Highways, that might seem a weird idea. After all, Arizona Highways features truly extraordinary photos of Arizona in every issue. What makes this issue different?

The main difference is a pair of articles highlighting the work of two professional photographers, George Stocking, who works with digital equipment, and Jack Dykinga, who works with film. There’s also a portfolio of black and white images, many of which appear to have been taken relatively close to where I live in Wickenburg.

My Change from Film to Digital

But it’s the digital vs. film argument that intrigues me. I used film for years and continued to use it for what I considered my “serious” attempts at photography until 2003 or 2004. Back in college, I took a semester-long photography class which introduced me to photographic composition and gave me basic darkroom skills. When Mike and I moved to New Jersey and had a basement, we set up a darkroom. (We still have the enlarger and other equipment in storage.) I had (and still have) two Nikon 35mm SLRs — a matched set of N2002s that can share lenses. I’d put black and white film in one camera and color in the other.

I’ve had a digital camera since the mid 1990s. (Yes, I was the owner of an Apple QuickTake.) As technology improved and prices came down, I upgraded regularly — at least once every two or three years. I bought pocket-sized point-and-shoot models — mostly Canon PowerShots — that I’d carry in my purse and use when I wanted a decent-quality photo when I was out and about.

[At this point, I’d originally written a summary of our experiences with a Pentax 67 for aerial photography. In an effort to shorten up this post, I pulled it out and posted it separately: “Our Foray Into Aerial Photography.”]

Years went by. I realized I was using my pocket-sized digital cameras more than my SLRs. A lot more. In fact, for a while I wasn’t even sure where those SLRs were.

Then we planned a trip to Alaska in June 2007. I wanted to be “serious” about photography. So I bought a new camera, my first digital SLR: a Nikon D80.

I picked the Nikon because it would use the two lenses I already had: a 50mm and a 28-85mm. I brought it all along on the trip and took some photos. They came out okay. I realized that I was just snapping away, as if I were using one of my pocket cameras. I wasn’t thinking about shooting. I was being a tourist and taking tourist photos.

MercuryHere’s an example. This photo, which I call “Mercury,” is one of my favorites from the trip. The light is bad, but I really love the reflection of this boat. When you consider I snapped over 300 images in two weeks on this trip and I saw some amazing things along the way, I find it odd that this should be one of my favorites.

In my defense, we had a relatively tight schedule and limited means of transportation. We covered a huge area in about 2 weeks. It was an area we didn’t know, so I had no ideas of where to go for a photo shoot. The weather was overcast with bad light for a few days. And then there was Mike, who hadn’t come to take pictures. He wanted to see as much as we could. So we didn’t really have the best conditions for photography. It was more like a scouting trip.

But having the camera and knowing its capabilities, prompted me to practice the art of photography. It’s become a serious hobby again.

Jack Dykinga’s Thoughts on Digital Photography

And that brings us back to the Arizona Highways articles.

From the article highlighting Jack Dykinga:

Dykinga thinks the ease of digital photography has contributed to an erosion of the craft. “Just because you can, you do,” he says. “The images are completely disposable. You can keep shooting digital all day, even through the worst light, and although none of it might produce great pictures, it might still be marketable. You can correct it all in Photoshop. That starts compromising your values. Where, if you’re really going after just one or two shots a day, you’re concentrating all your efforts into one thing, like throwing a shot put.”

This is an interesting twist on something I’ve been saying since starting to use my digital SLR. I’ve been arguing that the ease of using a digital camera gives you the power to experiment. Unlike Mr. Dykinga, I’m not a professional. I’ve never sold a photo and don’t expect to. I’m still learning and I expect to continue to learn forever.

When I used film, I’d go out and shoot and come back and get the photos developed — or do it myself in a darkroom. It could be days or weeks between the photo shoot and actually seeing the images. There was a cost involved, too, and the more I shot, the more it cost. These are not good conditions for experimentation.

But when I shoot digital, I can immediately see, in the back of my camera, a tiny version of the image I just shot. I can check exposure at a glance. I can zoom in to check focus. I can turn on automatic exposure bracketing and let the camera make multiple versions of the same image so I can see which exposure works best. I can also snap various images of the same subject from different angles to experiment with framing, focus, and exposure. Because it costs the same to shoot 300 photos as it does to shoot 3, I don’t have to worry about cost.

This is, of course, what Mr. Dykinga is saying. But while he’s talking about professional photographer getting lazy by shooting a bunch of stuff without really thinking about it, I’m shooting a bunch of stuff to learn more about what works so I can think about it.

I do agree with what Mr. Dykinga says. But there’s no way that could convince me to go back to film. I can’t afford it — in time and money — if I want to be a better photographer.

Mr. Dykinga has the ability to go to a place and see the shot before he even unpacks his camera. He’ll spend a lot of time with his complex and somewhat archaic equipment to make a handful of photos. They’ll all be incredible masterpieces of fine art. This comes from a lifetime as a photographer, doing it every day for a living.

Me, well I’m just trying to learn how to increase the quality on a higher percentage of what I shoot. I’m at the point where I won’t take a photo if I know it won’t come out good without a lot of help from Photoshop.

I think what Mr. Dykinga is trying to say is that serious photographers should not get lazy about photography. We should think about every shot and try to make every single one a high quality work of art.

I’d like to do that. I just need more practice to learn how.

A Final Word about Arizona Highways

Arizona Highways is a great magazine about Arizona. It’s published by the Arizona Department of Transportation, and other than ads about Arizona Highways publications, it’s ad-free. It features excellent photography and articles about Arizona history and activities.

If you’re interested in photography or Arizona, I highly recommend subscribing — or at least picking up an issue at the newsstand. It’s only through our support that this fine magazine will continue to be published, as Arizona faces budget shortfalls that threaten its existence. Be sure to check out various books and other publications listed in the magazine and on its Web site.

Our Foray into Aerial Photography

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A side note to my Digital vs. Film blog Post.

[I’d originally written this as part of my post titled “Digital vs. Film,” but pulled it out in an effort to shorten-up that post and keep it more focused on the topic. You might find it interesting if you think you might want to try your hand at commercial aerial photography.]

Pentax 67 CameraI think it was in 2003 that Mike and I decided to try our hands at aerial photography. I bought a book about it (as I usually do, when I want to get a jump start on learning something) and the book said the best kind of camera for this kind of work was a Pentax 67. The camera was huge and heavy and took 126 film, which could not be processed locally. But that didn’t stop me from plunking down $1,500 for a used one. You gotta spend money to make money, right?

The Pentax 67 turned out to be a huge mistake. Although the camera had an internal meter, it did not have automatic exposure. So each exposure had to be set using its meter before snapping an image. Since I was doing the flying, Mike did the photography. He’s set the exposure on the first shot and use the same exposure for the entire shoot. You might think that would work, but it doesn’t. As the helicopter approaches the target from different angles, the sun hits the target differently. Some images were under exposed while others were overexposed. 2/3 of the images were not usable. And because we didn’t know this until nearly a week after the shoot — after the film had come back from the out-of-town processors — we didn’t know until then how bad the results were. We did two reshoots — at my cost — before I decided that camera was not for us. I sold it for $1,000, swallowing a $500 loss after owning it for about a year. Ouch.

I bought a Canon G5 camera. This was a regular digital camera that looked a bit like an SLR. But although it had all kinds of automatic, program, and manual settings, it did not have interchangeable lenses. It did offer 5 megapixel resolution, however, and that was a huge number in those days. We tried our hand at aerial photography with that. The results were better — at least the exposures were good and we could see them immediately — but my photographer was having trouble properly framing the subjects and our clients evidently had different ideas of what their property looked like from the air. I decided to give up on providing photography services. If a client wanted aerial photography, I’d be perfectly happy to do the flying for them, but they’d have to come up with their own photographer.

I’ve since purchased a Nikon D80 with multiple lenses. We’re playing with aerial photography again, but I’m still not interested in taking on any commercial assignments with either Mike or me snapping the pictures.

You can see some of our aerial photography efforts (with more to come) in the Flying M Photos gallery.

Lake Powell Photos win Photo Contest

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Photographer Mike Reyfman takes first place in “Abstracts” category.

Lake Powell Abstract by Mike ReyfmanI’m extremely pleased to spread the news that one of Flying M Air’s best clients, Mike Reyfman, has won an award in the Pilsner Urquell International Photography Awards. His series of photos of the sandstone canyons uplake from Rainbow Bridge has taken first place in the “Abstracts” category. Here’s one of Mike’s photos, reproduced with his permission. You can see them all here.

I’d like to add two things here.

First, whenever a photographer who flies with me wins an honor or publishes a photo taken from my helicopter, I feel a great deal of pride. Although I didn’t frame the image and snap the photo, I do feel as if I’m part of the photographer’s “equipment.” My small part in any great photo makes me feel good.

Second, Mike offers photo excursions all over world. Although most of his clientele are from Russia (where Mike is originally from), I’m pretty sure he’ll take anyone who can speak either Russian or English. Lake Powell is only one of the destinations he comes to regularly; he’s also taken groups to Iceland, the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, and lots of other places I wish I could go. Aerial work is only a small part of some of the trips he offers. You can learn more and see Mike’s gallery of photos from his travels on his Web site.

And thanks, Mike, for letting me know about your award! Congratulations!

Abstinence-Only Sex Education Does Not Work

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Perhaps the Bristol Palin situation will put a spotlight on this.

One of the things that bugs me the most about the Religious Conservatives in this country is its policy regarding sex education. Basically, they don’t want it taught in schools.

Social conservatives — including, ironically, Sarah Palin — promote an “abstinence-only” sex education program. My understanding of such programs is that they attempt to teach young people to abstain from sex until they are married. There’s no deep discussion of what sex is and how it works. There’s certainly no discussion of “safe sex” or birth control. Young people are simply told not to have sex. Period. End of statement.

I’m pretty sure the idea behind all this has something to do with sin. Evidently, it’s a sin to have sex before you’re married. And since most high school kids aren’t married, they shouldn’t be having sex. Doing so would commit a sin. I’m not quite sure what happens when you commit a sin like that — eternal damnation seems a bit harsh, doesn’t it? — but it’s evidently a bad thing.

Now I could go off on a tangent and bring up the theories of Richard Dawkins, who claims that parents forcing their religious beliefs on their kids is akin to child abuse, but I won’t. Although I do agree with a lot of what Dawkins has to say, I believe that parents have a right to bring a religious (or non-religious, for that matter) belief system into their kids’ lives. (I don’t, however, believe they should force their kids to marry before the age of consent, as at least one religious cult is apparently doing.)

The trouble with this is that kids can be kids. Teenagers have raging hormones. Things happen. One thing leads to another. Not all girls (or guys, for that matter) are thinking about abstinence or sin or mom and dad on a date when opportunity (and something else) arises. It’s hard to stop once you get started. Anyone who has had (and enjoyed) sex can tell you that. (Which makes me wonder if these abstinence-only supporters ever enjoyed sex, but that’s something to debate another day.)

So when the moment of truth arrives and neither party remembers abstinence and holds up a STOP sign, where are the condoms? Obviously, they’re not around. These poor kids were never taught about safe sex and birth control. They were probably even told that birth control is a sin. Neither one of them would be caught dead with a condom in their possession. At that moment of truth, all they know is what their bodies are telling them they need to do. So they do it.

The very lucky ones don’t start a baby and they don’t share a disease. But maybe that just confirms that what they’ve done is okay. So they do it again another time. Or with another partner. And sooner or later, there will be a pregnancy or a disease or both.

Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, brought up in a religious conservative household by a mother who believes in abstinence-only sex education, is the victim of her mother’s policies. I don’t know the girl and I don’t know what she was taught. But I know she made a mistake and I can’t help but wonder whether the mistake was one of ignorance rather than stupidity.

I’m angry about this. I’m angry because the Republican party is simply blowing it off, using this unfortunate situation as proof that Sarah Palin is “just like anyone else,” with the same kind of family challenges that anyone has. This teenage pregnancy is okay to them. After all. Bristol is still going to have the baby. And she’s going to get married. So everything is okay, right?

Did anyone ever stop to consider what Bristol may have wanted to do with her life? Maybe she didn’t want to start bearing children when she was 17 years old. Maybe she wanted to finish high school and go to college. To become a doctor or a lawyer or — dare I say it? — a community organizer. In other words, maybe she wanted to start a career or have a bit of life on her own before getting married and starting a family. Or maybe she didn’t want to have a family at all.

Even if she did want to start a family when she was young, do you think she really wanted to be changing diapers for her own baby when she was only 17 years old?

Now although I’ll admit that I’m pro-Choice — as every woman who isn’t held firmly under a man’s thumb should be — I’m not for a moment suggesting that she abort the baby. While I think that could have been an option very early on, it should not be an option at 5 months into the pregnancy. (And yes, folks, there is a difference.)

What I’m suggesting here is that if Bristol — and the thousands of young women like her all over the country — received proper sex education, including safe sex and birth control information, she would not be in the situation she’s in. And neither would her boyfriend, who will soon find himself in attendance as the groom at a good, old-fashioned, shotgun wedding. (After all, why potentially ruin one life when you can potentially ruin two?)

Bristol’s lucky, in a way. Her parents are well-to-do. They have good jobs — hell, there’s a chance her mother might even be vice president. They have money. Even if Mom’s away on official business, there will be nannies around to help. Bristol might come out of this okay — if the media attention doesn’t permanently traumatize her.

But what I’m hoping for is that Bristol’s predicament opens a few eyes among the members of the Religious Right. Abstinence-only sex education does not work.

And now we have a poster child for it.

Tips for Flying at Lake Powell: Lake Powell and the Airports

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The first of a four-part series about flying at Lake Powell.

I’ve been at Page, AZ on the dam end of Lake Powell for about a month now. Although I already knew quite a bit about flying at the lake from numerous photo jobs here, I’ve picked up quite a bit in the past month, mostly from my pilot neighbors at the campground. Since I have enough material to blog about it, I figured I’d write about it, mostly to get my mind off politics and the tech book I’m working on.

Anyway, this will be a four-part series and this is the first part. I have notes for the other three parts, so I’m sure I’ll get them done — probably within the next week or so.

About Page and Lake Powell

Glen Canyon DamPage is the town built in the late 1950s to house the workers on the Glen Canyon Dam, which was under construction at the time. It sits atop a mesa to the east of the Colorado River. The current population of the town is about 7,000, but it attracts approximately 3 million visitors a year.

The dam was completed in 1963 and water began collecting behind it in what would become Lake Powell. It took 17 years for the lake to reach its high water mark at 3,700 feet elevation. Since then, the water level has fluctuated considerably over the years. As I type this, the water level is at 3,629 feet, a full 71 feet below full pool. Around the water line is a tall white line: the so-called “bathtub ring” that marks the high water line.

Lake Powell with CloudsLake Powell is outrageously beautiful. Its clear, blue water reflects the clear Arizona/Utah sky. Its red rock canyons, buttes, and other formations change throughout the day with the light. Deep, narrow canyons cut into the desert, making mysterious pathways for boaters to explore. When the wind and water is calm, the buttes and canyon walls cast their reflections down on the water. In the rare instances when weather moves in, low clouds add yet another dimension to the scenery.

I love the lake.

Flying at Lake Powell

The best way to see Lake Powell is from the air.

On the LakeSure, it’s wonderful by boat — especially by houseboat over 5 to 7 days with a bunch of good friends or family members — but views are limited from the ground and distances take a long time to cover. Let’s face it: the lake’s surface area is 266 square miles (at full pool) and it stretches 186 miles up the Colorado and San Juan Rivers. You could explore the lake by boat for a year and not get a chance to visit each of its 90 water-filled side canyons.

So if you have a plane (or helicopter) or feel like splurging on an airplane tour, you’ll get a special look at the lake that few people see. I highly recommend it.

[Air]Ports of Entry

There are technically four airports along Lake Powell. You can see them all on this pieced-together sectional. (The lake straddles the Las Vegas and Denver charts.)

Airports at Lake Powell

  • Page Municipal (PGA) is the main airport. It’s on east side of the mesa where the City of Page sits, and has two runways. Runway 15/33 is the more commonly used runway; it’s longer. But for strong crosswinds, there’s also 7/25, which does not have a parallel taxiway. There are two FBOs competing for the fuel business (AVFuel and BP). There are tie-downs and a mechanic on the field.
  • Bullfrog Basin (U07) is at the Bullfrog Crossing marina. I haven’t landed there (yet), but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have any facilities. It does, however, have transportation to the marina, where you might be able to get lunch.
  • Cal Black Memorial (U96) is 10 miles from Halls Crossing. It’s a nice airport with a good, lighted runway and 24-hour fuel pumped by Maury, who lives there. (Maury’s getting over some surgery as I write this, but I hope he’ll be there if you stop in an visit. Tell him Maria with the red helicopter says hello.) There’s a shuttle to Halls Crossing, where there’s a lodge and boat rentals, during regular business hours.
  • Hite (UT03) is near Hite Landing. This is a very scary runway — narrow and perhaps slightly crooked — and it’s marked “hazardous” on charts. The last time I drove through the area in 2005, the Hite marina was high and dry and the area was deserted. It might be a bit more active now that the water level is up a bit.

Landing at PGAMost people fly into Page, since it’s the only airport near a town. If you come in from the northwest and land on Runway 15, as we are in this photo — well, we’re actually lined up for landing on the taxiway — you’ll make your descent right over the lake, west of Antelope Marina. (The town is all that green stuff to the right.) Taking off on Runway 33 has you shooting out over the edge of the mesa and lake. Pretty dramatic stuff. I have a lot of fun with it since I don’t really “climb out” after takeoff. The airport is at 4316 feet and the lake is currently at 3629 feet, so there’s no reason to gain altitude if I’m just cruising the lake.

Cal Black has the distinction of being the closest fuel to Monument Valley — about 25 miles away, I think. I made quite a few fuel stops there on a 3-day photo job at Monument Valley and even flew in before sunrise one morning. (Scary stuff; there’s nothing else out there.) I don’t know enough about Bullfrog to provide any tips, but I’d recommend staying clear of Hite.

If you’re a helicopter pilot and think you can set down anywhere near the lake or on one of its islands or buttes, think again. Lake Powell is in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and off-airport landing is prohibited. If you’re caught doing it, you will get in serious trouble with the National Park Service and the FAA. I don’t think it’s worth it, do you?

Coming Up

In the next three parts of the series, I’ll cover the air tour operations, which all pilots flying in the area should be aware of. Then I’ll tell you about some points of interest on the lake. Finally, I’ll tell you what to expect if you fly uplake, beyond the Confluence of the San Juan.

Meanwhile, your comments are welcome here. I’m especially interested in hearing from pilots who have landed at one of the four airports along the lake. Save your tips about points of interest for Part III or IV.