In this issue

1. My Artwork of the Week

2. Frontispiece

3. On the Tyranny of Technique

4. Waiata mou te Ata-Kea Song

5. Fevered Mind Links (to make your Sunday morning coffee go cold)

6. Endpapers

My Artwork of the Week

I've always been in love with rakau (trees) and the ngahere (forest).

As some of you know, I am a forestry brat. When he returned from the war, my father took up a career with the New Zealand Forest Service. So I was born and spent most of my childhood on the edge of state forests, going to sleep each night and listening to the whispered conversations between the pine trees and the wind.

Whenever I'm in a forest, I like to wander slowly, feeling the pulse of the tree world, occasionally stopping to put one hand on this tree or that and feel its unique mauri (energy). I like to reach my consciousness down into the interconnecting root systems and feel what is going on. When I do that, the labels come off, and I no longer see tree, root, or leaf. Instead, I'm plugging myself into the life of the forest. I'm connecting myself to the living dream (or the dreaming life) of the world of trees. Then I can make pictures of what is being shown to me.

About forty minutes north of here is a small stand of a very ancient and sacred forest. It has been there a very long time. A short walk, about forty-five minutes in duration, passes through it. Many people come and visit it. Most rush through it without connecting, many so they can tick it off their Milford Sound bucket list. Then, they return to their cars and race back to town. Behind them, the forest shakes its head in bemusement at their blinkered ignorance.

In summer, the forest hums with life and vibrates in the sunlight. Juvenile kaakaa (our indigenous forest parrot)squabble and behave badly in the canopy high above. However, my favourite time to visit is in the middle of winter, when the trees are slumbering, and it's preferably a grey rainy day. Then the forest opens its heart and shares its secrets. "See this," it says. "Have you noticed this?" it asks. "Look over here," it suggests.

And the small boy who grew up in the shadow song of trees happily follows the breadcrumb trail of wisdom laid before him.

And he remembers those lovely lines from Robert Frost's poem:

Frontispiece

Atamaarie e te whaanau:

Good morning everyone:

Last weekend, as usual, I set off with good intentions to write the week's newsletter to you all.

And it didn't happen.

Despite my best intentions, Revue, which Twitter owns, suffered a major outage in a server farm somewhere. It lasted most of the weekend and only came back online late on Sunday. I wonder if Elon Musk had something to do with it…

What it did do is give me time to reflect on what I'm sharing with you this week. I do have something to offer those of you who have come to experience something lyrical and poetic. However, I'm going to pivot slightly towards the photographic in this issue, particularly the tyranny of technique and its importance. So this issue is going to be a bit more photographic-ey. I hope you like it.

Last week, after a six-month absence from the wonder of the road to Piopiotahi/Milford Sound, and thanks to Fujifilm New Zealand's generosity, I took the amazing GFX 100 with its gobsmacking resolution (if your technique is up to it!) and went up there. This week's images were all made that day.

I've been eager to share them with you.

On the Tyranny of Technique

I blame two people for my unapologetic commitment to technical excellence in my photography; firstly, Ansel Adams, one of the leading lights of the f64 movement, whose approach to photography is beautifully encapsulated in the above quote, and secondly, my friend, the late Nick Elliott, who led me deep into the arcane world of darkroom chemistry in an ongoing search for technical perfection.

In nearly 40 years, I've never been able to get past the fact that I am always looking to express what I say in a way unhindered by flaws in technique or post-production.

However, mastery is never a destination-it is only ever a journey. For example, depth-of-field is one of the hardest things to understand when we begin walking in photography. I know I struggled to get my head around it for nearly two months. Then, when I thought I had "mastered" it, I suddenly realised there was still more to know, new understandings I hadn't come to appreciate until then because I wasn't ready for them. For example, depth of field is not just about aperture; it is about focal length and distance from the subject, all of which impact how sharp our picture will be front-to-back. But, of course, you all know that.

Don't you?

And, further down the road, you become aware that depth-of-field is not a neat virtual box between you and your subject. Depending on the lens you use, it may well be this or, in fact, a curved field.

The point here is that no matter how accomplished we may feel ourselves to be, there is always a new understanding to be gained.

Where am I going with this?

One of the great joys of our medium is that we are always learning, constantly adding to the body of our knowledge, enlarging our experience and what we can produce. It never ends.

Knowing that a number of you are keen photographers and probably come here to gain something photographic, I'm going to introduce a weekly tip or 2 to help you at the technical level.

So here goes. The benefit of me making/having made the mistakes so you can avoid them!

Ha!

Not all lenses are created equal

One of the ways I test a lens before buying it is to photograph a flat subject at the optimum aperture (usually 2 to 3 stops down from wide open). I look for a boring brick wall, put my camera on my tripod, and carefully position it so that it is perpendicular to the wall horizontally and vertically. Then I take the file, open it on my computer, and study the corners at 100% to see if any of them are unsharp. If they are, then I return the lens to the retailer. There is only so much you can do in post-production.

Some years ago, because of a commission I received and the size of the files requested by the client, I decided to buy a Nikon D810. I tried six different Nikon 24-70/2.8 lenses, and not one of them was sharp in the corner. Not one. That shouldn't matter if I'm doing ICM (intentional camera movement), but this was an architecture job. I certainly wasn't going to pay $3500 for a lens that wasn't sharp. So I ended up buying a Sigma Art lens (24-105/F4) for 1/3 of the price, and it was glitteringly sharp all the way through.

I also looked at a Tamron 17-200/2.8 (the price was right!). But I ran it through my brick wall test anyway.

I'm glad I did.

It turned out that the lens was out of collimation; one side of the picture was sharp, and the other was not. So I took the lens back and tested another one. That wasn't sharp either, this time on the opposite side of the frame. The third sample I tested was perfect across the picture plane, so I bought it.

What am I trying to tell you here?

Don't assume that the lens you are about to buy is perfect. The manufacturers make them in batches and within acceptable tolerances. So the one you purchase may be perfect or on the outer edge of what that manufacturer deems acceptable. It doesn't seem to matter whether it is a name-brand first-tier lens or one a level down.

Caveat emptor.

Please let me know whether this section is of any interest, and let me know if you have any questions you would like answered so I can incorporate them in a future post.

Waiata mou te Ata-Kea Song

― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow  

Kea Song

On day twenty-three

hefted aloft and thrown alone,

on a flaming spear of sun-burnished orange air

over groaning grimace shoulders

of huddled, hunchbacked mountains

in time-woven korowai of white

bearing the weight of a singing-bowl sky,

I came to flare and float

and gasp and grip

a blue-draped finger of lichen-feathered branch

above the relentless heave of a hissing stream,

as it busily reworked its gravity-fed bed

of grumble-grey granite stones,

and polished time-speckled bones,

the ground-down crowns

of a sighing, forgotten past.

Fevered Mind Links (to make your Sunday morning coffee go cold)

Octopus Blues and the Poetry of the Possible — www.themarginalian.org

To live wonder-smitten with reality is the gladdest way to live. But with our creaturely capacity for wonder comes a responsibility to it — the recognition that reality is not a singularity but a plane.

The Moral of Flowers: An Illustrated Victorian Encyclopedia of Poetic Lessons from the Garden — www.themarginalian.org

“In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens,” the poetic neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote in contemplating the healing power of gardens.

Nature and Creativity: The Science of “Soft Fascination” and How the Natural World Presses the Reset Button of the Brain’s Default Mode Network — www.themarginalian.org

“In the street and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean,” Thoreau wrote in contemplating nature as a form of prayer — a clarifying force for the mind and a purifying force for the spirit, a lever for opening up the psyche’s civilization-contract

The 2022 Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlist is out of this world — newatlas.com

Perhaps the greatest space photography competition in the universe, the Astronomy Photographer of the Year has revealed its 2022 shortlist and its nothing short of spectacular.

5 Lessons Sebastião Salgado Has Taught Me About Street Photography — erickimphotography.com

All photos copyrighted by Sebastião Salgado. I recently saw Sebastião Salgado’s “Genesis” exhibition in Toronto about a year ago, and was blown away by the body of work. It was the most ambitious project I had ever seen– essentially Salgado aimed to photograph the entire world.

May 20, 1990: Advice on Life and Creative Integrity from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson — www.themarginalian.org

‘Tis the season for glorious life advice dispensed by cap-and-gown-clad elders to cap-and-gown-clad youngsters, emanating a halo effect of timeless wisdom the rest of us can absorb any day, at any stage of life.

Electron whirlpools: Scientists witness electricity behaving like water — newatlas.com

Researchers at MIT have observed “electron whirlpools” for the first time. The bizarre behavior arises when electricity flows as a fluid, which could make for more efficient electronics.

Last minute dinner sorted: Cook herby, lemony, piggy, tomatoey meatballs tonight — www.stuff.co.nz

Like it or loathe it, the winter weather is making us all feel drab. But this is one meal guaranteed to put a pep in your step. It's easy to make as well, and packs the warming punch you need in your stomach before you all settle in for the night.

Ranking every creature in the Hairy Maclary universe — thespinoff.co.nz

First published in February 2021. New Zealand bloody loves Hairy Maclary. We’ve made films about his life, erected statues in his honour, and turned Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy into the bestselling book of last decade.

Striking Portraits Showcase the Wild Beauty of Camargue Horses in Southern France — mymodernmet.com

Photographer Albert Dros captures the majestic beauty of wild white horses in his series titled The White Angels of Camargue. The name refers to the breed of horse, the Camargue, which has an ancient history and is indigenous to its particular region of southern France.

End Papers

It seems to me that Nature and our beautiful blue planet are a series of interlocking networks, of spirals which weave through each other and intertwine to create a beautiful whole. So, of course, we are a part of this beautiful mini-cosmos.

Creating our own small rituals is a way to honour the wonder we are a part of. And we should never think that our small practices are unimportant. On the contrary, if we accept the wonder of all that is, we have an opportunity (and obligation) to play our part in the Grand Dance of Life.

For some reason (and I don't know when it began), I established my own small ritual to honour the wonder of the natural world just outside my front door. Whenever I buy a loaf of bread, and before I eat, I take the crusts, tear them up and scatter them onto the lawn for the birds. It's a way, I suppose, of expressing my gratitude for being here in this place and time.

The birds don't mind at all.

Now, when I do it, my lawn is mobbed by sparrows, finches, thrushes and Mama Blackbird, who oversees the party. The bread doesn't last long, and I'm constantly amazed how such small birds manage to fly away with bits of bread larger than themselves.

After the rain, my pothole-filled driveway (which should be named Four-Wheel Drive) becomes an aquatics centre for the birds, who delight in washing themselves in the puddles. I usually wait until they have finished before I start my car to go down to the shops. They are as much a part of the world as I am.

Last year, while teaching a workshop in central Auckland, I walked out the back of our building and watched a woman sit down on a park bench. No sooner had she arrived than vast flocks of birds appeared, circling her and landing on her shoulders and arms while she fed them. It occurred to me to photograph her, but somehow it felt wrong, that to do so would intrude upon a beautiful and intimate moment. Passers-by scurried along, their minds focused on their phones or whatever business they were about, completely missing the point of life, namely our connection to the wonder of the natural world we are a part of. The Bird Lady was plugged-in and connected to something greater than herself, which the other people were unaware of.

I believe these small rituals connecting to Nature can have a potent effect on our well-being.

Perhaps it is like tossing a stone in a pond. We never know where the ripples will spread and their effect.

Let us celebrate the wonder of small things because they are subsets of something far more significant.

Do you have your rituals?

As always, I wish you much peace, joy and love for the week ahead.

Ngaa mihi nunui arohaa ki a koutou:

much love to you all

Tony Bridge | X-Photographers | FUJIFILM Digital Camera X Series & GFX – New Zealand — fujifilm-x.com

Fujifilm X-Photographer Tony Bridge's Online gallery. Explore Tony Bridge's photography shot with the FUJIFILM X Series cameras and lenses.