Stephen Johnson Photography News

November 2023

Hello to my guests and subscribers. Thanks for visiting my November 2023 newsletter.

This month's View From Here column explores data archives, artificial intelligence (AI) in photography, a few projects, and shares some new photographs.

My next workshop is the Highway One Coastal Journey being offered December 2-3. A new virtual lecture has also been added the schedule Downloading and Archiving Your Digital Photos. Virtual Lecture Wednesday evening, November 15, 2023

A special 2023 Holiday Print Sale starts November 1st. Drawn from many years of work, these images vary widely in subject matter, scale and place. They are all examples of my search for beauty, some in the natural world, some where human interaction is in play.

— Steve

As these newsletters can cover many subjects, let me know of topics you would like to see addressed.

Sea and Sky. 2023.

Looking out to the sea, I was struck by the dark blue horizon, and had to resist speeding to the cliffs. The green, blue, yellow, and gray was a complex and wonderful bonus. As is so typical, the scene changed rapidly and was gone within moments of making these photographs, which were stitched together to include a wider vertical view.

I’m offering a 14-inch-wide print of this photograph for $195, matted to 16”x20.” This print at this price is offered through November 30. I'll be taking orders until then, and shipping them out by December 15.

Cliffs from Yaki Point. Grand Canyon, AZ. 1995.

I recently dug out the original 140-megapixel file on this and fell in love with it again. I remember so clearly being on the south rim of the canyon, looking north into one of the most complex scenes imaginable and finding a way to put together a simple design from it. I remain grateful for the view and photo technology that allowed me to hold it. From “With a New Eye,” my 4x5 digital national parks project.

THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson

Archives, Futures, and Real Places

Most of this past month has been taken up with work that I thought would be much simpler than it turned out to be. My hoped-for trips keep getting scuttled by things that simply had to get done before I could wander with the “getting lost” attitude I was seeking.

So as I turn my attention to finishing this newsletter, the photos continue to be local, the aspirations for trips high. I wanted to pull out photos of where upcoming workshops are taking us.

My Highway One Coastal Journey workshop, next offered December 2–3, visits some of the places I think of as classic coastal environments I thought I might highlight here.

A few thoughts on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Photography

I photograph to record the wonder of what I see. I’ve thought whatever talent I might have is largely tied up in an ability to see uniquely, to distill this complex word to a simpler one, and perhaps even open a window of greater comprehension. I find my home in trying to be a sensitive witness to the real, the true, the essential.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Photography challenges much of this thought process. If I’m fixing a hole in an empty sky left blank by the warp of a panoramic stitch, if I’m asking software to heal a dust spot, AI, from simple imagery to much more complex constructions, can be amazing.

But as I’m playing with the new AI tools to generate synthetic additions to my photographs, even if it makes the image “better,” I find myself left cold. The reason for making the photogaphs is diminished, perhaps even gone, the image no longer about the scene before the lens, but also about computer generated result. To what purpose? To make a better image? Perhaps. I could now not call the results still a photograph. It is now a combination of the real represented, and made up stuff. All of this is framed by degrees of synthetic, and how the image is presented and understood by the viewer. As illustration, as I always say, do whatever your want, in the broadest interpretive creative sense you desire, even if you are only choreographing a computer to generate it. If is is glorious, show it it, get it out there. You might sign it as a partnership though, “Steve and Adobe Firefly," for example, and I think we should make clear it is only partially a photograph, and we have only partially created it.

I recently came across a set of photographs from Big Bend National Park in south Texas on the Rio Grande. The photos portrayed and amazing sky above the desert with linear clouds stretching across and upward through the image. I had clearly made a set that I intended to stitch together, but they were not carefully done. The last time I looked in the folder I apparently tried a quick stitch. The potential was great, but there were big holes of cloud and desert missing from the stitched image. It seemed like a good time to play with AI Generative Fills in Adobe Photoshop. By extending the sky and ground, I was able to capitalize on the cloud patterns, extending it for much more drama, and allow for a road to play an important role rather than be a fragment in the image. But what did I have in the end? A better image, but no longer a real photograph. I kept asking myself, what was the point?

Painters synthesize all of the time. Their painting skills and imagination allow them to. That is the point, and we’ve celebrated a myriad of styles and approaches for a thousand years. But photography is different. Different in where it comes from, and what it means. The Texas panoramic was a better image after the generated parts were added. But it was no longer an image made from light. It started out that way, representing what I saw, then went down a path of just plain making things up. If I was painting that, and had the talent to do so, that would be great. But it wasn’t a painting, and I created only the photo part. The computer created the rest of it. The computer created elements in the image that made it a much stronger image. But I didn’t do that, I instructed the computer to, with only the vaguest of instructions, and software figured out what to do, how to do it, and synthesized imagery into a result.

And I ask again, what is the point of that? A reasonable answer might be to create a stronger, even if partially machine-made, image. For me, I can’t help but still ask, “What is the point of that?” I am clearly carrying prejudices about photography and art that are being challenged by AI technology. Again, for me, photography has never been just about the image, it seems to have always been about the why. What is the purpose of making the image? To let a computer do a make-over?

I can hear a counter voice saying “C’mon Steve, it’s just a picture.” But then again, it’s not.

And the sources images being drawn from the wide web are also most often made with light.

Photos from 28-Year-Old Archive

I recently had to go back and pull original scans from my Digital National Parks archive as evidence of their veracity. I’m always nervous when going back to the original CDs from the project written in 1994–1997. They are gold Kodak or Ricoh disks, were written from the original camera data, and have been played only once or twice, stored in my fireproof filling cabinet in the dark. They continue to mount and read fine on my older systems, but every time I access them, I copy onto a growing hard disk archive drive. My duplicate set of disks are in another location, and those disks have not been touched beyond their initial writing.

Archive Process

For me, the archive process is critical to preserving and finding my work. The following describes the protocol that evolved for me over the years, and that I have been using for some time.

Current Hardware

I am still using hard drives rather than Solid State Drives (SSDs) for the cost factor and early problems with data recovery on SSD. My process is to buy two new 4- or 5-Terabyte hard drives every year, using one as the primary disk and storing the duplicate drive in a different location.

Archiving Process Summary

1. Direct offload from computer mounted camera disk to archive external drive. This is either done with Adobe Bridge’s Photo Downloader or by selecting and copying from the Mac desktop to the new archive folder. Photo Downloader has many advantages, as it can impose custom naming and metadata during the offload process. Adobe Lightroom can do the same. Otherwise I rename the files and compose the metadata manually in Bridge.

2. Metadata: I want all Global Positioning System (GPS) data preserved, and automatic imposition of my copyright and contact info, which can be done via a metadata template created from within Adobe Bridge. Additional information can be added in the title, copyright, your website, contact info, keyword, and description fields.

3. Custom file naming: For many years now, I have automatically changed the names of files from the default camera-generated name to custom names in this sequence: year, month, day, custom location/event words and the sequence of the images in in the folder from that day. 20231021_carmel-canyon-moon-night_0014

As I work through a set of photographs, I rate the images of interest for my level of satisfaction, usually ranging from 2 to 4, with a rare and precious 5. I then explore the raw processing on the most compelling of them, and often export a 1000-pixel-wide jpg in sRGB for my newsletter and social media posts.

Seriously interesting photos get opened in Adobe Photoshop as 16-bit files for more refined work and then get saved as full resolution PSD files if Photoshop Layers are present, plain TIFFs if not. My standard working space is ProPhoto RGB. These edited files are then the basis for future work on the photograph, including the first, and eventually, final prints.

In the Neighborhood

Out and About

Night sky watching is one of my favorite things to do. The moon through clouds approaching the horizon was one of those moments where grabbing the camera and trying a few photographs yielded a photograph that was not only more than I expected, but very reflective of my feelings about the scene.

I judged that the moon was dropping too fast to go for the tripod, so I set the Fuji GFX100s camera on a railing and hoped for the best. Long exposure Noise Reduction was turned on, I tried bracketed exposures and single images. The lack of a tripod ruined a few, as did focus errors in the low light. A magnified manual focus turnned out far better than the auto-focus routines.

Atmospherics

Farallon Mirage

Another Mirage doubling the height and distorting the Farallon Islands 25 miles off the San Francisco coast.

More Fog

As I said last month, fog makes the world seem gentler.

This photograph was made after the fog rolled in over me at my usual cliffside sunset spot, and I went up to trail at the top of the ridgeline. It was held-held, and like the image above, would have benefitted from grabbing the tripod. Not grabbing the tripod is always a mistake.

The hand-built maple frames were made by San Francisco Art Framing Services with Optium Acrylic glazing to minimize reflections.

Virtual Educational Experiences

Virtual Classes and Lectures, online live classes on various topics with limited space and Q&A sessions, are now a regular part of my workshop program. Critiques are now virtual.

Downloading and Archiving Your Digital Photos. Virtual Lecture. Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Virtual Mentoring/Consulting

Existing Online Tutorials

Photo Chats

I’ve been doing weekly virtual Photo Chats with groups of photo friends to keep everyone encouraged to keep working, creating a forum to share and problem-solve. I’ve now built a webpage on the chats. Let me know if you would like to join us.

Come Visit the Exhibitions (masked visits by appointment)

Life Form Exhibition

Life Form opened in the Main Gallery at Stephen Johnson Photography in July 2018. I’ve had many visitors come by the gallery since the opening. Many have then joined workshops and certainly helped build community. Come see the show by appointment.

Seeking Good Venues for Life Form

I’m seeking good venues to show the Life Form Series. The series is now available for museum and gallery exhibition.

The Studio, Scholarships, Mentoring and Tutorials

Many of my mentoring students have wanted help with their printing, often to make sure they can produce a specific print. Consequently, my Print Mentoring Program sets up a 2-hour time slot and the production of a finished print, all with the tutorial video of how we did it together. Prints can be up to 16x20 and on either Hahnemühle Museum Etching or Photo Rag Pearl paper. Fee is $500. Email for more information and to set up times. 

Gift Certificates Available for Prints and Workshops!

Water: A Photographic Portrait

My new book Water: A Photographic Portrait, now available to order.

• 88 pages of color and black and white photographs

• 11x17 inches

• Wire bound for completely flat enjoyment

A collection of photographs in and around Pacifica, California. Includes a trail map.

• 74 pages

• 11x17-inch, wire-bound book for full lay-flat opening and enjoyment

• Pacifica Trail Map

• 32 years in Pacifica

• 10 years of calendars

• $50