Canson Arches BFK Rives is produced in two varieties, white and pure white. The names of these two papers without mentioning the Canson part are already a mouthful. Imagine if the BFK part wasn’t abbreviated. I assume BFK is an abbreviation. I don’t know what BFK means. I’ll investigate as my curiosity is now tweaked. Doesn’t matter, let’s get to the important part…

White, Whiter, & Whitest-est

I have no idea why one version has the moniker white. As far as I can tell, this is the same paper previously known as BFK Rives period, without the white added on to the end. I have a sample pack. No, the word period is not in the name. I’m dwelling on this apparently minor point for a couple of reasons. The entire Arches line of papers are very white. So much so that at first glance, I thought they had some degree of optical brightening agents (OBAs). I mentioned this a few weeks ago.

Another reason I dwell on that word white used as a differentiator is that BFK Rives White turns out to be the least white, warmest paper in the Arches line. It’s warmer than the ’88’, it’s warmer than the Aquarelle, and it is certainly warmer than its fraternal twin BFK Rives Pure White. So what you have with these two nearly identical papers, both very white, considering they have no OBAs, are papers that bracket the Arches very white family as the whitest and the warmest.

Texture

When taking a look at the Arches line of papers, I decided to asses the most textured to the least textured in the family. Aquarelle is the most textured. I contrasted that paper with other highly textured papers as a reference for readers that might be familiar with the Moab Entrada Coldpress or the Hahnemühle Museum Etching.

Both BFK Rives papers are not quite as textured as any of those referenced above. Both are quite clearly textured but definitely more subtle. At first look, there was something that reminded me of a paper I love, Hahnemühle Torchon, but consider extremely textured and therefore a little bit more specialized than smoother papers like Moab Entrada. I decided to compare the BFK Rives papers to Aquarelle and, of all things, Hahnemühle Torchon.

Textured needs to be defined with more clarity. What exactly does more textured vs. less textured mean precisely? It’s obvious when comparing papers that are miles apart in terms of any apparent texture. An example would be comparing Moab Entrada Natural with Natural Coldpress. Using a phrase like more textured is quite obvious. It’s not that Natural has zero texture; it’s just very fine and very shallow. It doesn’t impose itself on the applied image in a way that is obvious like Coldpress does.

When evaluating papers that are obviously textured, it’s useful to compare texture in two different dimensions that I’ll term width and depth. The width dimension is how wide the textured pattern is. Depth, again by its very name, is how deep from the surface the textured pattern is. One more consideration that determines the overall look of textured papers is the ratio of those two factors. I’m not going to attempt to math this to death, but that depth ratio plays a huge role in the contrast and therefore perception of the texture.

A paper with a very fine texture in terms of the width of its pattern but being relatively deep will be contrasty and rough in appearance. It will impose that texture upon a printed image in a significant way. Keeping that same depth, or even more depth with a very wide pattern will be softer in appearance. This is why Hahnemühle Torchon came to mind when I examined the BFK Rives twins. The Torchon has a ludicrously wider texture, but that texture is so wide it doesn’t have deep shadows that call itself out prominently.

The BFK Rives papers are similar in that way. The width of the texture is much finer but doesn’t have enough depth to be as prominent as the Aquarelle. It’s probably more versatile and easier to pair with a wider array of photographs because the texture doesn’t demand attention.

Pairing photographs

I dove into the notions of width, depth, the ratio of the two, and how those things affect perception of paper textures because it’s super important when mating photographs to the perfect paper. Matt papers offer a huge diversity of surface textures. That’s what is great about them. So many of those obviously textured papers are drop-dead gorgeous. I tremble with fear and reverence when I hit that print button, hoping to make a beautiful object, hoping I am not ruining the pristine material. I typically don’t feel that way with a plastic-looking bright white semi-gloss run-of-the-mill all-purpose photo paper that looks a lot like the stuff you get from Walmart prints.

The more apparent the texture, the more important it is to consider how that texture interacts and imposes itself on a printed photograph. What might not be so obvious is that the texture is of a constant size no matter what size the print is. The detail in the photograph does change in size depending on the size one prints. This can be amazingly important when selecting a paper.

Printing a 7in x 10.5in picture on 11in x 14in paper can look vastly different in terms of how paper texture interacts with the detail than the same picture printed much larger or much smaller. Do yourself a favor, print a proof with the photo at the same scale for your final print. It’s super easy to do with Photoshop.

• Load up your picture in Photoshop

• Go to Image->Image Size

• Uncheck resample

• Set your image dimensions to the target print size in in/cm

• Go to File->Print

• Select a much smaller size paper.

• Drag the image around in the preview to print an area of representative detail at the full scale of the target print on the smaller paper.

Color, blacks, etc.

This one is easy. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time because there are no significant differences in gamut, dmax, or other characteristics that are worth pointing out. Both papers have more than adequate characteristics compared to peer matt papers. They will both perform extremely well with color and black and white photographs, leaving little to yearn for. I’d not at all consider either of these “softer” papers in terms of toning down an image color or contrast. There are other papers that will do that. The BFK Rives are definitely more in the category of highly performing matt papers.

The defining characteristic of BFK Rives White is that it is the warmest paper in the Canson Arches line. It is subtly textured but definitely something you cannot consider smooth. The texture is subtle enough that I don’t think there is a large risk of that interfering or clashing with most photographs. Being the warmest paper in the Arches line-up, it’s still very much on the white side of non-OBA papers, so it gives a clean appearance.

Moving on to the Pure White brother. This is definitely the whitest, brightest of the Arches papers. That’s saying something significant since all of them being natural cotton rag bases are very white as the numbers bear out. If you want subtle texture that imparts an obvious fine art feel while having a “poppy” look approaching papers with OBAs, this is the paper for you. Super impressive for a portfolio in my opinion.

May 4, 2021, we published our first newsletter. Our goal and our intent from that very first newsletter was to celebrate and promote photography, specifically photography in print. We’ve done our best from day one to stick close to that. Of course there are photography topics covered that are peripheral to making prints we’ve covered but always tried to keep them connected to the primary mission.

From that beginning we’ve also tried to publish one newsletter every week. I think we’ve been faithful to that commitment made possible entirely due to the support we’ve received from our paid subscribers. We’ve never wanted to imply that paid subscriptions got “the good stuff” hence our publishing schedule. Four times a month with the fourth being available to those that support us financially, we would not be able to do that without you.

Later, we were able to add the DIY series. At first that was published bi-monthly. Later we published that series every month. Again, thanks to those that support the newsletter financially. As we celebrate our fifth year publishing the newsletter we hope to continue to improve it and expand the number of topics and depth in the weekly newsletter and the monthly DIY series.

In celebration of our five-year anniversary we wanted to thank the entire community, especially those that make our continued efforts viable. In recognition and thankfulness we decided to make the last newsletter of March 2026 available to all of our subscribers. That particular newsletter isn’t something “special”, but there’s no way we could do it without the financial support. Just a little help allows us to acquire the paper, the ink, and spend the time.

We’ll be publishing our observations on the rest of the Canson Arches line of fine-art papers over the next month or so, and we wanted to make sure everyone could follow along. Consider that series specifically brought to you by those that make the entire endeavor possible with their generous support.

Ten years ago

The genesis of the newsletter focusing on photography in print started not five years ago but ten. We made a decision that was very difficult at the time. We decided to make all of our workshops in-person, limited to four participants, and entirely focused on photography in print. Every one of our workshops was dedicated to producing a physical object and doing that with real people in the same space we were.

Why was that a hard decision? It was hard because everyone else was running hard in the other direction. It severely limited our scalability. It also limited our audience. Most photographers at that time seemed far more interested in Instagram and Facebook and…

Fast-forward, there’s a phrase that I continue to hear more and more. I don’t know who or where the original phrase came from, but I do hear it more frequently month by month. That phrase; ”touching grass” in spirit was our motivation a decade ago. I guess this newsletter encourages touching grass in a way, producing physical objects with the photographs you make and sharing those in-person with any sized audience. We hope you feel the same.

Why a newsletter?

A couple of reasons, actually many reasons, but the biggest is my increasing aversion to other forms of electronic communication. As time goes on, other forms of electronic media demand continuous engagement by design. We have no desire to engage an audience continuously.

A newsletter seemed like a more gentle way, a return to publications that would show up on a regular schedule to be consumed on the reader’s schedule. It also seemed a far better fit for longer form, more thoughtful content. I still believe email is the “killer app”. Yes, it’s abused by marketers and scam artists, but so was regular snail mail. Now that email isn’t treated like a pager or text messaging it might even be better. By its nature, mail isn’t urgent in the sense real-time communication is.

We have used both the audio and video features of this modern technology platform in moderation. Specifically, we’ve used video only to demonstrate things where we’ve thought it was more clear than words. We’ve used audio instead of video for things like interviews that can be listened to with people’s own words in their own voices. Unlike video, audio doesn’t demand sitting in front of your a device with all of your senses engaged. It can be consumed more casually, like radio vs. television.

This is a big reason we’ve not dived in to the messaging, notes, and real-time features of the platform we use for email delivery. When we selected this platform we felt comfortable with their model, and so far we still feel that way. I don’t feel spammed with irrelevant content or abused in my inbox, so I trust our community feels the same. If that changes, we will change too.

Someday...

Someday, we’d love to do this full-time. Someday, we’d love to publish in print, not just a version of this newsletter but something different. Someday, we’d love to host exhibitions and provide a venue for lovers of photography in print.

Are any of those things close? No. Does that matter? No, we’ll continue to increase and improve the content of the newsletter as long as we can with all of your support. While doing that we’ll continue to look for possibilities and hope the “somedays“ come to fruition.

That first newsletter almost five years ago was an attempt to reinvigorate the in-person exhibition of photography as we were at the tail-end of the big COVID shut-in. It was an allergic reaction to more than a year without in-person workshops and Zoom fatigue. We were a little too early, we learned a lot of things. We’ll continue to champion the physical manifestation of a photograph and the in-person celebration of photography.

Index of fine-art papers

We’ve shared our thoughts on quite a few fine-art papers. Consider the new series covering the Canson Arches line of papers an acceleration of that effort. In addition to adding more of our observations and comparisons of different papers, we’ll also share our thoughts on photo-paper pairing. We spend an immense amount of time choosing papers that will best showcase the photograph. We’ll be sharing our thoughts on that topic more and more as we go forward.

Checkout the new index of papers we’ve tested and discussed. There are many more to come. In a way it’s a golden age for photographers like us that don’t consider it done until a photograph is printed. The selection of papers for printing photos has never been better. On that note stay tuned for an announcement I would have never expected.

Thank you to our entire community for the first five years.

As mentioned a week ago, we’ve obtained a box of all four Arches papers from Canson. I couldn’t wait to try them for a current project of mine. I’m in the midst of deciding what paper pairs best with this small project. I’ve mentioned the project before. My working title is ”Watercolors : Subversion”. I don’t intend for this to be published as a book or small ‘zine; it’s too small. Instead I’ll be producing 10 to 12 small prints. Obviously, the project was sparked and the first two or three photographs were pulled from my original Watercolors project.

I don’t know if I am done making photographs for the project but given the work I’ve already done I already have started down the road of choosing a paper. I don’t use heavily textured papers much for my own work but decided to see what the 10 photographs I’ve made looked like on a “Watercolor” paper. Since I already have that set of 10 printed on Hahnemühle Museum Etching, I thought a good place to start with the Arches line was Aquarelle, the most visibly textured.

Before I give a summary of my findings I’ll divide this into two schools of thought. The first is my objective observations about the Arches Aquarelle as compared to other similar papers. The second being my subjective thoughts on how well I think it pairs with this specific project printed at the target size of 7in x 10.5in on 11 x 14 paper. I’ll try to make each school of thought clear.

Watercolors : Subversion project characteristics

Each photograph is color and has a very limited color palette. Every one has some degree of warm tones and cool tones but the proportion of each varies tremendously. Some of the photos are subtle, almost monochrome and also having low saturation others are vividly saturated. Taken as a whole there is a consistently in the hues among all of them. The other common characteristic is that the photographs themselves have a shininess or sheen to them for lack of better terms.

Given the nature of the project I decided to use two photos to evaluate all of the Arches line, including the Aquarelle. Both are highly saturated and have a broad tonal range from deep shadow to brilliant highlights. One is predominantly warmer tones, the other is predominantly cool tones. I thought that these two extremes would best demonstrate the papers. I’ll use the same for all of the Arches papers and the papers I am going to compare them to.

Warmer tones

First up is the warmer tones. I’m not going to verbally exaggerate the differences between these two wonderful, premium quality papers as that would be misleading. My over all assessment is that they are extremely comparable. I’d probably choose one or the other based far more on the surface texture more than I would any clear advantage in shadow or highlight rendering. The same goes for blacks and overall gamut differences. These papers would give a similar impression if not right next to each other and being scrutinized.

The characteristics I observe are:

• The surface texture as mentioned (more on that later)

• The base color of the Aquarelle is slightly whiter than the Museum Etching

• The shadow and highlight rendering are similar the Aquarelle has slightly higher punch in the highlights that I’d attribute to the whiter base

• Much to my surprise, there seems to be a difference in the gamut within the warmer tones, specifically in the upper midtowns and highlights. The Aquarelle seems to hold onto the saturation. Take a look at the bottom left of each print in the yellows reflected in the water. The punchier cool upper mid-tones I attribute more to the base whiteness more than saturation

Cooler tones

I don’t see a noticeable difference in the cooler blue tones as I did in the warmer toned photo. The rendering in terms of saturation is too similar to bother with differentiating them. If you think you see a difference in the illustrations it’s probably due to seeing more of the blues in the top print than the bottom. My observations are looking directly at the prints in a broad spectrum, even light.

The interesting thing you can see in the illustration is that my observations from the warmer toned photograph seem to hold true here. Take a look at the piling in the foreground. Again the warmer tones seem to be more saturated as the go towards the upper mid-tones. Also, take a look at the highlights on the boat and the motor.

Texture

The reason I’d choose one of these papers over the other is texture. Using words to describe texture is fraught with dangers. I’ll give it a try. Both the Aquarelle and Museum Etching should be considered highly textured papers. Any close viewing shows both are not subtle. That doesn’t mean they are direct substitutes as they are very different. I’d never mix the two even if there wasn’t a difference in base color.

• Both are deeply textured in that they cast deep shadow into the shadow when lit from the side

• The Museum Etching is more varied and broad in texture

• Aquarelle is finer and more even

• Interestingly that more even texture has more variation in depth

• Both papers are incredibly sharp. Contrary to what one may think that’s not familiar with textured papers they do not at all soften a photographs appearance, quite the opposite, they usually give an impression more sharpness. Don’t confuse this effect with the rendering of fine detail.

• The hand feel of the Aquarelle is softer and more pliant as compared to the Museum Etching which feels a bit stiffer. Both are thick and heavy weight.

Bottom line

Canson Arches Aquarelle is an interesting addition to my repertoire of textured matte papers. I’ll be selecting this paper when fine-tuning surface texture for a particular photograph. It’s good to have access to a large variation of surface textures; that texture can play very differently depending on the size an image is printed.

The base tone is another important consideration. Some work calls for a brighter, whiter paper. Other work calls for something a little warmer without going head first into what I’d considered colored bases that are quite obviously yellow/brown.

Aquarelle is a great paper with color as well as shadow/highlight rendering characteristics that are top tier. On the more subjective side, I’ll not be using either paper or anything nearly as textured for my ”Watercolors : Subversion” project. I already knew that with my first run of prints on the Museum Etching.

The texture at the size of the prints I’ll be making does nothing but detract with the very smooth negative space like the cooler-toned photograph while also interfering with the fine textures of the rippled water in the warmer toned photo. The images in the project just do not sit well on these papers, double so for the small print sizes I’ll be making.

A big thank you to all of you that have been so generous by supporting us with a paid subscription, it certainly helps us with a little bit towards some paper and ink. I’d love to hear from all of you that have experience with these highly textured papers; point us to some of your work that pairs well. I’m sure the community would learn a lot when considering them for their own work.

In my previous DIY, I went through the process of coating a canvas print. Now let’s go on to the next step. Once you’ve allowed enough time for drying and outgassing of any volatile components, it’s time to wrap the canvas around your frame.

Frames

The first item to attend to in mounting your canvas is your choice of framing sticks, a detail that can derail your entire canvas print project! Too many photographers make an enormous mistake in not paying enough attention to this.

Basically there are two broad categories with framing sticks. You can either make them yourself or buy them custom cut to the size you want.

Read more

I like to think of myself as open-minded, curious, and willing to engage things on their own terms. Turns out that we are all probably guilty of cognitive bias. You might remember a review that we shared of the relatively new baryta matte papers more than a year ago. There are a lot of things to like about those papers. One primary characteristic would be their relative brightness compared to natural matte papers. That brightness gives prints more visual “pop”. For some photographs this extra pop can be exactly the thing that makes it sing.

For decades that baryta coating was the go-to way of providing that little bit of extra visual contrast without resorting to optical brightening agents. The catch was that it has traditionally only available coupled with a glossy surface. Having that option now available on a matte paper is fantastic option for those that don’t want a few of the downsides of matte papers using optical brightening agents. Personally I avoid papers with OBAs due to their tendency to appear blue in certain lighting conditions. This is especially true when using strobes with very high color temperatures when making pictures of prints.

There are a ton of situations where choosing a “bright” matte paper with OBAs is the best choice and truly enhances certain work. One of the downsides of the matte baryta papers is the china-like smoothness. There’s no choice of surface textures, the two characteristics are married together.

Cutting to the chase, I was shocked that a paper I’ve seen a hundred times in sample books had absolutely zero optical brightening agents. When flipping through small and large sample books I’ve always assumed that the paper did given how “bright” it appeared contrasted to “natural” matte papers. On a whim I printed one of my Watercolors/Subversion project photos on Canson Arches 88. It looked great. It looked a lot like Moab Entrada Bright but with a surface akin a matte baryta paper.

Upon further investigation I found none of the Arches line of four different papers contained OBAs. This revelation caused me to immediately put a fully comparison of these Canson Arches line of papers on the schedule. We’ve obtained a box of each of those four different papers this week. I cannot wait to share our findings with you.

The reason I am so excited is that matte papers offer a huge variety of surface textures and hand feel. Matching photographic work to the perfect paper is truly an art unto itself. Exploring where the Canson Arches line fits into this broad spectrum of matte papers between natural and bright opens a dimension new to me. I’m hoping this exploration will save some of you time and money while pointing you in the right direction for your photographic projects.

I’m sure more than one subscriber has experience with the Arches line of papers and the above mentioned Arches 88. I’d love if you shared your thoughts on using them with us and the rest of the community. We’ll be sharing ours shortly but not this week as we’re neck deep with a group of talented photographers hosting a portfolio workshop.

We spend a lot of time on this Substack talking about the technical ins and outs of fine art printing. But in the studio recently, Bob passed by as I was framing a print and casually commented on the tool I was using.

“You should do a Substack on it,” he said. “Seriously”.

The more I thought about it the more I’m seeing his point, because, candidly, it is undoubtedly the most used - and useful - tool in our studio. I’m referring to our indispensable camel’s hair (or horse hair) brush.

The Dust Devil

Let’s face it. If the devil is in the details, he’s masquerading as dust. A couple of years ago I framed a 40 x 60” print for a client. For any of you who have done large format prints, you know how painstaking that process is. I measured and cut the frame, sanded, glued and clamped it, painted it (1 coat of primer and two coats of paint), cut the glass and the double mat and backing board, affixed the print to the backing board, secured the package in place, affixed a dust cover, and added hanging wire. IMHO, the print looked gorgeous.

I stood it up and examined it. Perfect. The next day, as I was preparing to package it for delivery, I got a major wake-up call (smack up side of the head, as my North Carolina friends would say). On the bottom of the white outer mat there was a big flake of paint dust mocking my careful and time-consuming work. I’ll let you imagine how I reacted. After I calmed down, I dissasembled the entire frame and started all over. More on what caused this disaster in a minute.

Just Brush It Off... and Vacuum!

I do pride myself in meticulous attention to detail in our studio, so much so more than one of my colleagues over the years has suggested that I should rearrange the letters of Alan, my middle name (I’ll let you figure that one out).

A key tool for framing is my modest camel’s hair brush, which was given to me by my photographer father and which I have used every day in the studio for the past 50+ years. I’m constantly sweeping our work tables to reduce dust, crumbs and paper shavings on work surfaces.

For framing, my method for dust control is that before I do anything, I first sweep the work surface with my trusty brush. Then I lay down heavy paper to protect the work surface, I sweep the paper. I sweep the mats, backing board, etc.

One important tip is that if you do your own framing, after you sweep thoroughly, be sure to also methodically vacuum the insides of the frame (the rabbet) with the vacuum brush in place. That is the most problematic area. Dust can accumulate in the crevices and the nature of wood is that it holds the dust or wood splinters or paint chips until you are completely done with the frame, then spits them out.

The point here is that aside from all the rather expensive items needed for framing, don’t forget the simpler ones. A large, soft hair brush (camel’s hair, horse hair or synthetic) is essential. It’s a devil of a tool.

Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, Sieff (born 1933) produced an immense body of work throughout the 20th century. I know he produced work throughout the 1990’s until his death in 2000. To this day there are collections of his work published in new books and exhibitions. It’s interesting to me that he’s not one of those household names for photographers… I personally discovered him in the late ‘80s or early ‘90’s and immediately started studying his work.

I think what spurred my interest which continues until now is how much I can and do still learn from his use of space, he’s a master of wide angle composition. Through accident of poverty or unconscious visual sense I’ve gravitated towards wider, closer views and Sieff is one of the masters. His wide angle work is amazing, the compositions are clean, precise, with no wasted space. Sometimes they feel somehow natural where the perspective doesn’t immediately scream wide angle, in other cases they feel surreal. Either way they still have this hallmark of simplicity and lack of clutter given how wide the view is.

No matter if you struggle with wide angle composition or you are well on your way to mastering those perspectives he’s definitely one of those photographers well worth studying. What’s more amazing to me is that his commercial work is infused with the same perspectives as his fine art work. You will certainly find some more pedestrian point of views in his commercial work (as with many masters of photography) but by and large his unique visual sense is the most represented. What’s equally or maybe even especially interesting is that he continued to be black and white photographer well into the 80’s and 90’s until he passed away atypical of many of his peers in the commercial world.

The big questions is where to start. I own what’s probably the most popular and easily obtainable anthology; Jeanloup Sieff: 40 Years of Photography published in the mid-1990’s. The pricing for those is all over the map for used and new copies. I assume it’s out of publication. The google image search is not a great introduction to his work, you’ll probably have to dig a little deeper but it will be well worth the effort.

The latest publication I know of is available via YSL.com of all places. It’s priced reasonably given the outlet. You’ll definitely want to checkout his own website that’s maintained by what I assume is a collection of French and international photography foundations. You may need google translate but their is an extensive list of publications there that is a far better resource than plain old google and amazon.

In the age of the internet one expects that a comprehensive overview of a photographer’s work would be instantly available via google, instagram, and elsewhere. This is not the case for this amazing artists. Maybe it’s better that way. I love photography in print (as if that’s not clear), being forced to spend a little time finding and acquiring photographs in print form isn’t a bad thing. Sieff was definitely more appreciated in Europe and Japan. I stumbled upon him quite by accident. You may enjoy a treasure hunt that isn’t instantly satisfied sitting in front of the computer.

Workshop updates

All of our 2026 workshops are filled. We do have a couple of openings still available for our 2027 Portfolio workshop. More information and registration is at Les’ web site. March is a bit busy for us as Les will be returning this week and we’re going to be slammed with some work that piled up while he was away and two workshops to host but we’ll take a look at opening up some more workshops ASAP.

Thank you to all of you and especially those that support us with a paid subscription.

This month while Les is out of country, I took over the monthly DIY. My focus was to help those of you that might be a bit intimidated when thinking about displaying your prints in any venue. We talk a lot about making frames from scratch and all of the other things that go along with that, matting, cutting glass, etc, etc. I offered a solution to think about those that have never done any of it or worry about the cost of having someone else do it.

My proposed solutions were entirely theoretical. They were based on experience but I decided to do exactly what I proposed to all of you that may have just started to print your work might be intimidated at what it would take to exhibit those prints on a wall in your home or in and exhibition. I purchased the frames I proposed and printed at the sizes I recommended. Today I’ll share how that turned out and three different ways to use those frames, some caveats, and some upgrades. The first way I used these was to print, mount, and hang a test run of three photographs that have been hanging around in my “mini-gallery” for way too long. After seeing the results I’ve decided to make nine, read on….

Read more

I’ve probably mentioned how much I enjoy shooting film more than once. There’s a lot of benefits I gain from doing that on occasion. It’s not about the film itself as I can produce the same results and surpass them using just about any camera produced in the last decade or more. It’s not about the process of developing and printing in the darkroom although I do enjoy that on occasion. Now that I no longer have a dedicated, purpose-built darkroom for film and print production it’s more of a chore.

What is it about then? It’s all about approaching any given photographic scene with intention. When shooting film I’ve never attempted camera feature parity with the digital cameras I was using. Let’s take my work-horse camera for the last decade, the Canon 5DsR; it might surprise you how much feature parity there would be with the Canon EOS-1 film cameras produced from the mid-1990’s onward. It’s not the film, it is making decisions and approaching what is in front of you with intentionally and the few parameters that matter… mostly shutter speed, aperture, framing, perspective, and where you want the focus plane to be.

Of course one can exercise intent with just about any camera, even those festooned with buttons to control every feature modern cameras are equipped with. All of those buttons and dials theoretically allow you to override whatever automation is applied to a given scene. In theory you get a starting point that optimizes everything, then you can override it all with your intent. In practice that rarely happens because you didn’t approach the scene with such intent. You really didn’t start thinking about the primary photographic parameters I just mentioned before you brought the camera to your eye. Instead you just trusted the camera to decide, maybe you even picked the focus point but that’s about it.

Most of the automation stuff that promises to make you faster is a giant lie for 90% of the pictures made. The moment you pick up a camera you have intent but much of that goes out the window with auto-iso, auto-subject, auto-tracking, and auto-exposure. In fact “intent” is subjugated to an after-thought. Before picking up the camera and lifting to your eye the light, the scene, and those basic photographic parameters should be at the forefront of your thoughts. All of those buttons to access the thousand things modern cameras can do, all of those amorphous, customizable dials, all of those overrides are not making you faster or improving your photographic vision. In fact they are all distractions and mental clutter for most situations. If there was a way for me to track the number of times photographers actually use them I would be that they would all be forgotten most of the time; too much cognitive overload distracting us from the basics.

I choose a rather mundane example illustrated above to make my case. I was using my work-horse 5DsR because that’s what I had. I could have been using my mirrorless, far more capable R6, or just about any modern camera with auto-everything. I was tired after a long weekend, up late producing prints. The scene was not exactly what I wanted at the end of our portfolio workshop as I usually set-up a light optimally showcasing the photographer and their finished portfolio. On this occasion it was just the overhead general lighting at the “wrong end” of our work table and rather dim (compared to the LED panel I like to use for this). I could have just let the camera do its thing but I am glad I didn’t. Instead I approached the scene exactly as I would have if using my M4, or OM-1, FM, or any other manual focus, manual exposure, camera.

At first glance any general scene like this with people moving around in bad light would certainly be a candidate for subject eyeball tracking and not really thinking about any sort of intentfulness (is that a word??). How would I deal with this if I were shooting film? My answer for better or worse was the following…

• I’d probably push Tri-X about a stop and shoot it at about 800 ISO for the mid-tones.

• I’d use a wide or even a super-wide to give some context and use perspective to give the main subject the weight of size in the frame.

• I’d shoot wide open, again because of the lighting conditions as well as to get some degree of focus separation. The lens I had with me maxed out at f/4. That’s fine as many of my wides and super-wides were f/4-ish. I know what that looks like this close.

• A quick meter reading gave me somewhere between 1/25 and 1/50th of a second. That was fine shooting at 1/25 to 1/50th, in fact that was great as it would show some motion blur. Something I probably wouldn’t have thought of if I didn’t think it through before blasting off shots or using auto-ISO, etc. Maybe that would add some interest and convey just a little bit of how excited our group was with all the work they did over the weekend.

• Ahhh, the lure of auto-focus… I could certainly framed things up and selected an auto-focus point on each presenter’s eye and dutifully engaged the magic of auto-focus to make sure that eye was in focus (or using the R6 let the camera do it) that would be fast right, that would make sure nobody could comment that someone’s eye wasn’t in perfect focus every time right? Wrong once I actually thought about it. Sure, I used the AF-on button to focus but I decided I wanted a plane of focus on the photograph each photographer was presenting and their face and didn’t bother focusing and refocusing and refocusing and putting all of my own concentration how that was going… Instead I just focused once on the print, then I waited for the shot to present itself only refocusing when I changed position.

While these pictures will win no awards they do serve as an example of very typical scenes where we all might subjugate intentfulness to camera automation. In this case and in most cases it’s absolutely not required and our photographs suffer from it. It’s not faster, it doesn’t really allow one to pay attention to the scene in any sort of more intentional ways, it’s usually the opposite cluttering your thoughts with the wrong things. I made two mistakes in my thought process here and I’ll remember them. The first one was I choose a more conservative 1/50th second instead of 1/25s, I would have loved more motion blur, especially with the slower moving photographers of the group. The second mistake was closely related, I didn’t bother to account for my lens which has stabilization in this case, maybe I should have even made a few shots at 1/15 or 1/8…

As for post processing, as I do most of the time I slap the same treatment on all of them that corresponds to the intent I had when making them. Every once in a while I change my mind but in most cases I stick close to my original thoughts. Yes I love the flexibility of digital but when one shoots with intent it’s much harder to succumb to getting lost in every available option open to you. Trust me, your photography will benefit from a more intentful approach in just about every case both before you pick up your camera and after you are done.

Workshop updates

Matting & Framing Workshop

This workshop is filled for 2026. If there’s interest we’ll look at opening another one as soon as the schedule permits. Get more info on Les’ site. Let us know if you want to be on our waiting list, we do notify people on the list prior to making the next opening generally available and listing it here.

Intro To Fine Art Printing

We’ve opened a new date (May 2, 2026) for our most popular workshop — Intro To Fine Art Printing. The May 2, 2026 has one spot left register here. We’ve opened another for August 1, 2026 but now there are only 2 spots left more info and register here. This one-day workshop fills up quick as we strictly limit attendance to four participants. You can find more information and sign-up over at Les’ website.

The Portfolio Workshop

I’ll give you the bad news first. We scheduled two in 2026, they immediately filled up, yes both of them with people that asked to be on a waiting list when I posted those availabilities. So, if you are interested we’ve opened up a date for 2027. Registration is available over on Les’ site.

Thank you to all of our subscribers, and especially those that help fund this newsletter.

For many of you that desire to present your images and have followed many of our DIY series on framing, matting, and mounting you might be intimidated at how much work it is to start from scratch in building frames and all that goes along with it. Or you may not have the space to start mount that kind of effort. Last but certainly not least the thought of framing, matting, mounting even a small exhibition of ten prints is just not within a reasonable cost.

While, doing the work yourself costs a tenth of what it would cost a professional to do a high quality job, it’s still expensive for 10 prints and twice as expensive for 20. In today’s DIY newsletter I am going to share a secret for those that want to share your work on your walls or the walls of an exhibition space that will fit almost any budget and you can accomplish with any level of skill in any space.

Read more

A while back I wrote a newsletter attempting to explain something that is obvious but not taken into account often when designing a print, paper size, border size, and aspect ratio of the photograph. I know, I know… way, way too much information for most people that don’t have to deal with these things every day. I thought I would follow extremely long explanation up and focus in on one super simple take-away buried in there.

Let’s take the above tidbit and combine that with deciding on how much white space you’d like in your final print design. Most prints, especially those on the smaller side in terms of the size of the photograph itself are elevated with a substantial amount of white space. If am making a print with a 3:2 aspect ratio photograph and start with an 11inx14in piece of paper let’s start with a luxurious 2in border. Personally I think that looks great with the photograph centered. In fact as you can see that gives us a photograph that is extremely close to 3:2 with even borders on that 11inx14in paper. Some simple math will show that’s a 7x10in space in the center.

If you’re using the Lightroom print module just setup your 2in borders and check zoom to fill and you’re done. Close enough and most pictures won’t be compromised with that minor crop of about 1/4in off each side of the long edge. Your desire for everything symmetric will be fulfilled. But you say; “I want a perfect 3:2 aspect ratio”. Don’t worry… Here’s where that luxurious amount of white space comes into play.

Don’t check the zoom to fill box in Lightroom. Instead let the cell size contain the photograph without cropping. Now we have 2in borders on the sides and slightly larger borders on the top and bottom. It still looks great. You could leave it centered or weight it all on the bottom and it would still look great (I used to do that with 6x9in photographs on 8x10in paper when printing in the darkroom a lot).

No, that’s not for you. Okay, make the top and bottom borders exactly 2in and let the sides be a little narrower. Here’s what that looks like…

They all look great. When I make prints of this particular project I tend to go with the last option illustrated. My choice is based solely on what I think looks the best for this group photographs, probably because of the horizontal orientation of them combined with the overall feel of lines in the compositions themselves.

So, why 11x14in, it certainly is not a popular pre-cut fine art paper size. You can find it from a few manufacturers here and there but not many and not in every paper. There’s a reason I recommend that a great paper trimmer is one of the first tools you’ll want to buy right after a printer. This is certainly one of them. 11x14 will fit in 13in printers which might be the right printer for you. I could live with a good 13in printer for my personal work and be happy. Let me list the reasons this is such a great size…

• Buy 17x22 paper and use it for quite a few things by cutting to 11x17 and then shaving off 3in. Don’t forget to keep that slice.

• 11x14 prints with 2in borders are elegant hand-holdable, intimate prints, great for a small portfolio and begs close inspection.

• They are also plenty big to display on a table, wall, or anywhere else. Big enough to attract attention when mounted but small enough to be intimate and allow you to show a large number of photographs without an enormous space.

• They are super easy to frame and recycle those frames for other purposes.

• They are economical in every way no matter how you decide to produce and show them.

• They are wide enough to support a deckled edge and still look elegant and un-forced.

• In every way this is my go-to size and has been since the dark-room days, it happens that this was the largest I was setup to process given my enlarging easel, development trays, and print washer. It just might become your go-to size to?

Stay tuned, I will have a lot more to say about some of these points in the coming weeks and months. Les and I will be adding some practical and affordable print mounting and display tips for those of you that aren’t so handy and are on a tight budget. So much we want to accomplish for this community in 2026. If you can help us keep the lights on with a paid subscription.

Workshop updates

Intro To Fine Art Printing

We’ve opened a new date (May 2, 2026) for our most popular workshop — Intro To Fine Art Printing. This one-day workshop fills up quick as we strictly limit attendance to four participants. You can find more information and sign-up over at Les’ website.

Matting & Framing Workshop

This workshop is not about printing, instead it’s a hands-on workshop that shows you how to mat and frame your work. Due to the hands-on nature of this workshop it’s limited to three participants and is offered once/year. Get more info and register on Les’ site.

That’s it for now but we have some other workshop topics in the works for 2026 but we’ve had a hard time keeping up with our most popular workshops. If the dates currently available fill up please do not hesitate to ask us to be on a waiting list. We’ll do our best to make sure you get the first opportunity for newly scheduled dates.

Thank you to all of our subscribers, and especially those that help fund this newsletter.

I’ve probably said something like; “There’s no such thing as depth of field” many times without explaining what I meant. Go read all about that term and circles of confusion etc if you bored. Here’s what I mean. With enough magnification you’ll see that there’s really only one point with perfect focus. Of course in many situations there won’t be enough magnification to see that. When film was king there were certainly practical limitations to seeing that perfect point of focus clearly compared to slightly out of focus areas right next to it. Using 8x magnification wouldn’t show anything detectable at small apertures with wide lenses on 35mm film. Enlarging my own prints and using a grain magnifier showed me something very different.

Today we can and do a lot of pixel-peeping with an immense amount of pixels. We see gigantic amounts of magnification on our screens that show depth-of-field isn’t sufficient to render perfectly sharp images at any arbitrary magnification. That’s why the photography world is obsessed with giant “better” lenses and autofocusing systems that can “nail focus” on any arbitrary tiny point. In practice this obsession doesn’t matter that much but plane of focus matters much more when it comes to the perception and intent of a photograph, especially when printed.

I had the curse blessing of using large format sheet film and a view camera fairly early on in my own photographic journey. When a 150mm or 300mm lens is your normal lens it takes about 30 seconds to understand how much plane of focus trumps depth-of-focus in terms of the perception of the photograph. The closer you are to a subject the more and more this is true. You already know this too even if you’ve not worked out what that means or what to do about it.

Most of us use cameras and lenses where the plane of focus is locked to be parallel to the film/sensor now. That tends to blunt our sense of plane of focus, especially if one has never used a view camera or any sort of tilt-shift lens. That very important plane of focus thought is buried way in the back of your mind instead of front and center. Plane of focus matters a lot, even when you cannot manipulate it independently from the orientation of your camera. Being keenly aware of the plane of focus is something that should be another consideration in your composition. In a lot of cases it’s more important than depth of focus and is very related to perspective and point of view choices.

The closer you are to any given subject no matter what angle of view your lens is the more plane of focus matters in terms of composition. This is ingrained in my own photography no matter if I am making still-life pictures or portraits. As my depth of focus gets shallower that plane of focus becomes more compositionally critical to me. I make 99% of the still-life pictures for this newsletter at f/4, close up. There’s almost no depth of focus. Juggling point of view, perspective, and depth of field are all super important in my compositions. Yes, I do them quickly, hand-held and they’re not works of art but I do want them to convey meaning and remotely attractive so I try to pay attention to that.

Let’s take another case, something that might not cross your mind when discussing plane of focus, portraits. Depth of focus is discussed a lot in the context of making portraits, specifically the use of “portrait lenses”, typically short telephoto lenses with large apertures and shallow depth of focus. Even at moderate distances of 4 or 5ft developing a sense of plane of focus and relating that to compositional choices is just as important at that depth of focus (or lack thereof). Altering your point of view and tilting the camera even slightly has a huge effect on what is and what is not in focus in portraits. The same is true for still-life photography and everything else, the less depth of focus you have the more plane of focus becomes a tool in your compositional kit.

So, what do you do about this? That’s easy, practice, practice a lot to get that sense of plane of focus as something that’s just as important as framing, perspective, and point of view when composing photographs. Practice with large-ish apertures where you can see it clearly as you change your point of view and tilt of the camera with a static subject. That feed back and paying attention will give you more and more an automatic sense of that critical dimension of photographic composition.

You can go read all of the math on how this works but the sensory experience will take you much farther, faster. Without absorbing, contemplating, understanding, and calculation all of the math behind this the giant thing to understand and be aware of is that combining whatever depth of focus you have with plane of focus is always, always wedge-shaped. things closer to you will have less depth of focus and things farther away will have more relatively speaking. Even if you have the patience for focus stacking, you’ll thank me for this insight. Maybe stacking 3000 images trying to get the important parts of your subject “in focus” is not the best idea or the best picture… maybe adjusting your camera angle and stacking 3 images is a better photograph in every way let alone it being a huge time saver.

It’s winter time, it’s horrible outside (especially in the North East USA) grab a cheap tilt/shift lens and go to town, there are a ton of options on the cheap now. You don’t need a $2K or $3K lens to work with. You don’t need anything you don’t have, go-ahead and experiment with your large aperture lenses and make something cool.

Workshop updates

The Portfolio Workshop

I’ll give you the bad news first. We scheduled two in 2026, they immediately filled up, yes both of them with people that asked to be on a waiting list when I posted those availabilities. So, if you are interested we’ve opened up a date for 2027. Registration is available over on Les’ site.

If the date does not work for you we also decided to offer the same experience for those that want a more customized experience and cannot travel to us. We’ll be taking a very limited number of people for this custom, remote version of the workshop. You can sign-up at Les’s website but feel free to email us at portfolio@paperartscollective.com with any questions.

Intro To Fine Art Printing

We’ve opened a new date (May 2, 2026) for our most popular workshop — Intro To Fine Art Printing. This one-day workshop fills up quick as we strictly limit attendance to four participants. You can find more information and sign-up over at Les’ website.

Matting & Framing Workshop

This workshop is not about printing, instead it’s a hands-on workshop that shows you how to mat and frame your work. Due to the hands-on nature of this workshop it’s limited to three participants and is offered once/year. Get more info and register on Les’ site.

That’s it for now but we have some other workshop topics in the works for 2026 but we’ve had a hard time keeping up with our most popular workshops. If the dates currently available fill up please do not hesitate to ask us to be on a waiting list. We’ll do our best to make sure you get the first opportunity for newly scheduled dates.

Thank you to all of our subscribers, and especially those that help fund this newsletter.

Remember my rant regarding the Fuji X-half? Well, I think I was right because if I wasn’t right then that camera would follow the path of other highly-desirable Fuji cameras like the X-100 series, the X-Pro series, and other niche cameras like Leica M’s or Ricoh GR’s or others that are designed specifically not to compete with the do-it-all system cameras where “better” is not defined by focus speed, frame rate, video features, and everything else possible with the latest electronic technology. Instead, less than a year after the introduction we have fire-sale prices everywhere (you can buy a returned refurbished for $549). Don’t act yet, even if you want one as a toy… I don’t think we’ve hit the bottom yet.

Don’t take my criticism the wrong way. I’m not at all with the gang that continually bashes Leica, or Hasselblad, or Fujifilm, or any company that produces a niche product that produces a niche product that isn’t intended to compete against the mainstream “system cameras” in terms of how many things it can do and how fast it does them. I’ve been through this all more than once, most of us have. My criticism comes when those companies loose their way and produce gimmicky products at premium pricing. Remember that awful Hasselblad Lunar?

What can we learn from this given we’re not product planners, we’re photographers?

Read more

When you hear the term exhibition a thousand thoughts run through your mind. The first thing that you may think of is where will this exhibition be? A gallery of some sort? Some public place that could be used as a gallery? That’s a big ask, isn't it? How am I going to get into a gallery, how am I going to approach some local public of any kind, why would they want me to show my pictures? Seems daunting, and it can be but I’d suggest you’re putting the cart before the horse. Obtaining some gallery space, or a lot of gallery space is the first thing a lot of people think of when the word exhibition is brought up.

If you use this as a starting point there’s a good chance you’ll never start. If you put a pin in that thought, you might go to the next step and start adding up all the costs associated with printing ten, or twenty, or thirty large fine art quality prints, then mounting them. This will take months and cost thousands. Another sure fired way to never start let alone finish your exhibition. Put all of that away for now, I have a better starting point for all of you, even if you’ve had exhibitions in public spaces and art galleries already. Make a mini-exhibition.

What is a mini exhibition?

I’ve suggested using your home as an exhibition space more than once. That’s what Les and I do. We have a lot of wall space that we curate and rotate large prints that hang on our walls, a lot of prints. Here’s the truth though; We do it far less frequently than we’d like to. Sure we have full control over those walls but practically speaking changing what’s hanging on those walls takes an immense amount of time, effort, and yes — money.

How about using a tiny bit of space that anyone, in any home or work area can curate and hang work in an hour for very little cost? Sounds great, too good to be true? No, it’s so simple you’ll probably dismiss a mini-exhibition immediately but bear with me. Here’s what to do:

1. Choose a theme, subject, or project you want to exhibit.

2. Pick a reasonable number of photo graphs that will be in the exhibition, say 9, 10, or 12, something along those lines. That’s plenty.

3. Find a wall with somewhere around 24in x 36in in total area, the space you’d need for one large print.

4. Make your prints, make them small, say 4in x 6in at the largest. Make them smaller if you want.

5. Stick those prints to the wall in any way you want. Be prudent in how they are arranged, their sequence, their juxtaposition, and the space you leave between them. If one or two don’t really fit or enhance your mini-exhibition remove them, replace them with alternatives… or not.

That’s it, that is a mini-exhibition. I’ve suggested that you make small prints and make a lot of them before. I make a ton of small print and typically make them on a Canon Selphy because it’s cheap, easy, and “accurate enough”. The cost rivals the cheapest you can make them with the Canon and that’s how I like to make them but you can order them on-line from Walmart, Costco, or your local drug store if you want.

I do not suggest this is a one-time activity. I suggest you make a mini-exhibition once a month, if you’re extremely prolific make one every week. If you have the space, curate more than one mini-exhibition at a time. I’d suggest you don’t put them in the same room if you want a couple of these displayed at the same time. Put them in a place just for you if that’s how you want to start but put them somewhere you’ll see your mini-exhibition every day. I would also you encourage you to eventually put it in a place others will see your pristine, well curated, well designed exhibition. Trust me you’ll get questions, admiration, and feedback. You may even get more of this than you’d get in a large gallery exhibition. You’ll definitely get a lot of pleasure, practice curating your work, and putting together something compelling.

Since this is meant to be something you do frequently I’d suggest investing a tiny bit of money to make it more fun and a lot easier. The investment will be small and most of you can get the two items you need overnight from Amazon. Grab yourself any kind of magnetic sheet specified as a magnetic “chalk board” or “dry erase board” and a bunch of those tiny little magnets. You can buy these magnetic surfaces in a ton of styles that will fit into any small area as I’ve illustrated in the two selections I’ve highlighted but feel free to make your own and style it with your imagination as the only limit.

I started doing this way back in my darkroom days because I liked to live with small prints and how I decided to print them for a while before committing to making the final larger prints. Eventually those small prints were not completely unrelated but formed small projects that instead of sitting in a pile on my desk to go through when it crossed my mind, they ended up on the wall. When they did I could clearly see what belonged and what didn’t. I started subconsciously and consciously evaluating their relationships to each other. Without even trying much I improved my self-editing and curation skills. What’s even better is without knowing it at first, seeing those mini-exhibitions, they gave me ideas… ideas for current projects and for new projects.

Don’t worry, even if you are highly resistant to still-life photography, I’ll do my best to get all of you through this winter with me. Make yourself a mini-exhibition, here are a bunch of reasons.

• It’s fun, much more fun than a pile of prints on your desk.

• You will get better at curating your photographs and self-editing, you will get new ideas.

• It will get you away from the screen.

• You’ll have something to sell when a public display space opportunity presents itself. You may have multiple “shows” to exhibit. You’ll be far more than half-way there.

• You will get better at printing your images, you’ll make more confident decisions rendering those big, expensive prints.

Workshop updates

The Portfolio Workshop

I’ll give you the bad news first. We scheduled two in 2026, they immediately filled up, yes both of them with people that asked to be on a waiting list when I posted those availabilities. So, if you are interested we’ve opened up a date for 2027. Registration is available over on Les’ site.

If the date does not work for you we also decided to offer the same experience for those that want a more customized experience and cannot travel to us. We’ll be taking a very limited number of people for this custom, remote version of the workshop. You can sign-up at Les’s website but feel free to email us at portfolio@paperartscollective.com with any questions.

Intro To Fine Art Printing

We’ve opened a new date (May 2, 2026) for our most popular workshop — Intro To Fine Art Printing. This one-day workshop fills up quick as we strictly limit attendance to four participants. You can find more information and sign-up over at Les’ website.

Matting & Framing Workshop

This workshop is not about printing, instead it’s a hands-on workshop that shows you how to mat and frame your work. Due to the hands-on nature of this workshop it’s limited to three participants and is offered once/year. Get more info and register on Les’ site.

That’s it for now but we have some other workshop topics in the works for 2026 but we’ve had a hard time keeping up with our most popular workshops. If the dates currently available fill up please do not hesitate to ask us to be on a waiting list. We’ll do our best to make sure you get the first opportunity for newly scheduled dates.

Thank you to all of our subscribers, and especially those that help fund this newsletter.

Six years ago I made a YouTube video demonstrating the process of coating canvas with a varnish. Viewers had questions about the details of the process and since the video has now aged a bit, I thought this would be a good time to update my Substack pro subscribers and give you some additional tips for varnishing canvas.

The Reasons for Varnishing

Varnishing helps protect the print from fingerprints, water, soil and can mitigate the effects of UV rays. It also helps with the stretching process, minimizing cracks when wrapping around the frame. Varnishing also adds a bit of depth to the print without changing color.

The Canvas Varnish Scene

In the original video, I demonstrated Glossy, Satin and Matte varnish treatments using a Printshield product, which I felt highly about... and still do. However, there are many canvas varnishes on the market today.

Read more

I’m not the type of person that engages in the wide-spread tendency towards new year’s resolutions. Such discussions, reflections, and commitments tend toward the first week of a new year. We all know the clichés, the almost instantaneous dropping of those resolutions within days or weeks. I fully support the ongoing discipline of reflection, setting goals, and in a gentle way holding oneself to them, especially when those goals are of a personal and general nature.

That being said, culturally even those of us that have literally never uttered such a thing as a declarative new year’s resolution all of us tend towards those kinds of thoughts, if only passing, during this time of year. Here are a few things that have been on my mind all of you might find interesting in various ways related to your photography and artistic endeavors.

To AI or not to AI…

For conversation’s sake this isn’t a question posed as a hard-line embracing or eliminating all things AI in one’s photographic process. I am not suggesting the moment any AI related feature such as those we’ve seen in Lightroom, pops up in your digital processing tool of choice that it must be condemned and rejected. It’s more a question of AI generated images such as can be summoned up via various model’s prompts.

I ran across Tomaz’s (the founder and editor-in-chief of Frames magazine amongst other publications) take on AI generated images and their relationship to the practice of photography. I have similar conclusions, thoughts, and view of AI generated images overall that come from my general viewpoint of various mediums and the limitations inherent in them. I view those limitations as features rather than failings to ultimately be overcome. Beyond his views that are similar to my own, Tomaz has an interesting take I’ve not heard articulated before regarding artistic style. No matter what your view on AI generated photographic images are I encourage you to hear him out. Where do you fall?

Yes, more on still-life photography

In the latest newsletters I’ve brought up still-life a lot, even exclusively. This is more than a suggestion. I realized that many of my own photographic goals in the near future are still-life related. Many of the things on my agenda in terms of projects I will pursue happen to be still-life. To some degree I myself have been reflecting on my own failures and resolutions related to my photographic projects. There is a common factor in those failures. I put too many complicated requirements in the way that turn into perfectly valid excuses for not doing the work. This is easy to do, most of us do it without even realizing it.

For the most part still-life photography removes almost all of those built-in excuses like weather, location, subject availability, or other people. So you want to make pictures in the rain inspired by another photographer that has an amazing portfolio of pictures in the rain. It doesn’t rain every day where I live, it doesn’t even rain every week. When it does rain I am not at liberty to drop everything and go make pictures. I don’t even live anywhere near those pictures in the rain fit my vision. Sound familiar? Whatever obstacles and conditions and locations and subjects you have dreamt up, those don’t exist in virtually any still-life project.

I spoke about gear-related excuses and advised avoiding those but there are all kinds things we build in that almost assures failure or at least vast swaths of unproductive time. Want some inspiration? How about Edward Weston and his peppers or for that matter all of his vegetables, and shells, and…

My 2026 project goals

Yes, quite a few of my photographic project goals are still-life oriented. I think that they evolved from a couple of years making a ton of pictures but making no progress on my personal projects. Some of that might be due to my own emotional state but I also built in some of those obstacles that turned into excuses. Here’s what simple things I have in mind for the rest of the year.

• Minimalistic high-key botanical still-life. I have a general style in mind but lots to experiment with. I am also going to eliminate a built-in obstacle that those botanicals must come from my own yard or even my own harvesting in the forest I drive though almost every day. I will buy them if I must, that’s fine.

• Fleshing out of that mini-project I did on leaves. Great for a few hours long mini-project but there’s so much more I wanted to try. I lost track and never followed up but have always thought there’s so much more, even a life-time of exploration right in front of me. So simple.

• The county where I live is ripe with interesting scenes if approached in the right way. I already started this and at the time it was meant to be an on-going work of exploring and finding a way to present where I live in a way that expresses the history, culture, what changes, and what stays the same. My excuse? I really don’t know but it might be related to the notions of “seasons” that I accidentally built into the “theme”. I subliminally built in the notion that I already covered summertime but that’s completely untrue. I’m removing that notion completely given summertime is when I like to be outside and exploring both in the morning and the evening which happens to be the best time to make pictures outside.

• The every day pictures… I see things all the time that interest me and might even inspire a project. I used to make pictures of those everyday things. I used to explore techniques that made interesting interpretations of those everyday scenes big or small. Why don’t I do that anymore? I already know the answer to that question. I’ve rediscovered it a dozen times. That answer is to go camera bag free. Even small camera bags are an obstacle for me. I could easily take a camera only with me everyday, everywhere I go. I just don’t.

Different cameras, different pictures

I am not claiming that different cameras will produce completely different results nor that different cameras are incapable of producing the same pictures. That notion is ever more untrue as time and technology marches on. If one has a scene or subject already defined and uses the same approach to making a picture almost any camera will be perfectly fine and produce very similar results. It’s more a matter of how a particular camera will influence what you actually do, what subjects you make pictures of, and how you approach them.

Look at it this way, in the past you could use very fine grain film in a Leica and a tripod, and small apertures to make fine quality landscape photographs. Some people did exactly that. If you’re going to carry a tripod and take the time to hike to a particular location, and wait for the right light, and do all the things you need to do to make a sharp, perfectly rendered landscape why would you use a Leica? Why not just use a camera more suited to that style of working? Maybe that’s the only camera you have? Great, use the Leica but if tripod mounted landscapes are everything you do, maybe you should consider a different camera?

Fast forward to the digital age where the image quality factor is less and less related to the size of the camera. If I were in a workshop teaching people various techniques such as hand-held intentional camera motion as a creative option, spontaneous framing, blind shooting at unconventional viewpoints, and things like that I could use any digital camera I own. They are all capable of the same things, technically… The real question is will I actually do those things in my every day photography. For myself the answer is no because those things usually come about as a reaction to scenes and subjects I come across rather than set out to do. The problem is I don’t have a camera with me because I don’t want it banging around and I especially don’t want a camera bag.

I need a new camera, a bag-free camera. This sounds like G.A.S. as I have plenty of cameras that are all capable of making any picture I want to make, however I want to make it. It’s not G.A.S. I just am not willing to have a camera on a strap banging around all the time, they’re also too expensive, I have to pay attention to them everywhere I am, I can’t just lay them down somewhere without continuously keeping an eye on them. That’s fine for when I have intent to go make pictures. It’s not fine when I’m not.

I used to carry my Leica around all the time, that was a different age, I was a lot younger and that was the best option I had. I tried loving and treating an X100 the same way, never really gelled, I tried the same thing with an X-Pro, same result. I have film and digital Leicas but still the reality is I don’t want a camera banging around if I am not intentionally going to make pictures. I had the answer but sold it, probably because I bought it during a time when I was making pictures almost every day with my other gear so it seemed superfluous. It was superfluous. Today is a different day, a different year, I make a lot of pictures but I don’t have that intent every day, therefore I don’t have a camera everyday but I miss having one.

For some the iPhone fills that role. Nope, just doesn’t work for me. No matter how good they are, controlling them is too fiddly, holding them is awkward, the results in terms of “good” are evermore in only one dimension aesthetically. What I really want is exactly what the Ricoh GR, the first and ongoing APS-C versions offer. I had the first version with the 28mm, they’re offered in both 28mm and 40mm versions now, either would do for me but this is exactly what I need. In fact I am fine with the first version. I just might grab one of any varieties to forward my everyday picture goals. I might even make a resolution to actually make a picture with it everyday should I decide to pull that trigger…

Holding your camera

I hope the new year is treating all of you well so far. I wanted to share a few practical things I’ve learned along the way regarding making still-life photographs. What follows is a mix of those practical things mixed in with a few philosophical things that applies to all of us, a mixture of virtue and vice when it comes to practicing our art. I promise there’s something for everyone, even if you don’t take my advice of using some of the winter weather to venture into still-life photography in any serious way.

I’ll kick this off with two very related pieces of advice. The first is to use your tripod. I may have mentioned I hate tripods. All of them seem to be a giant pain. I don’t like to adjust them, I don’t like attaching cameras to them, I don’t like fiddling with detaching them. I don’t like crap attached to my cameras when using them hand-held. I especially don’t like destroying the ergonomics of cameras I like to hold with those ridiculous, cumbersome, expensive, L-brackets. I hate tripods more than my iPad. This being the case, using a tripod is essential for still-life photography. It is far easier and more efficient moving your subjects and arranging your compositions for the typical still-life scene than it is moving your camera. Find your general point of view, put your camera on your tripod, lock it down, then move your subject, adjust the arrangement, and add or subtract from your composition.

Most of you have a tripod, even a crappy one. Use it, you’ll thank me. What most of you may not have is a way to mount your camera to look straight down at a subject and relatively high up. You’re going to need a way to do that in order to make anything like a flat-lay. There are a lot of ways to do that and a lot of things you can buy, google it. The tripod you have is probably not tall enough. What do I use? Something that is completely insufficient as a “tripod” but is convenient and cheap (because I already had the most expensive component) — I use a C-stand with the typical arm that comes with most of them. I merely added a cheap ball-head and used one of a dozen ways to attach it to that arm. Yes, it’s shaky and bounces around because the arm is made of steel. Doesn’t matter as it settles down in a few seconds and I never touch the camera again. I use Matthews C-stands only because I bought them 20 years ago when they were cheap. You can find a substitute that’s just fine, shipped for free for a hundred bucks or under…

Most of the “still-life” photographs you see in this news letter are made hand-held. That’s contrary to everything I just said… well, most of them are done to save time and have a criteria of not looking awful. Yes I even do some of the overheads hand-held on my tippy toes while guessing to my framing and no adjustments to the contents or composition of the shot… that’s the real world but I wouldn’t consider them good. Trust me if you are trying to add and subtract items or fine tune their arrangement with anything but flat lighting you’ll waste way more time doing it hand-held on your tippy toes shooting way too wide and way too close.

As I’ve explained, I hate tripods… I have no obsession with or G.A.S. when it comes to buying stuff that is related to tripods or holding my camera securely. I am immune to the tripod-head-mounting-bracket siren call rabbit hole one can go down acquiring all the insane, expensive, gear that is associated with all camera things. For those of you who are prone to researching, buying, trying, and wasting time and money on this just stop. Make pictures instead, do what you can with what you have and buy only what is absolutely required. Makeshift solutions are okay until you have a real need and for heaven’s sake stay away from the really-right-stuff website…

Lighting your subject

I’ve mentioned that all you need is a window when exploring still-life photography. I use windows all the time along with whatever happens to be lying around as a backdrop and one or two makeshift white surfaced reflectors. Do that instead of making excuses. Sun coming through the window? Use it, hard light is okay. Didn’t want hard light? Use a pillow case or any white fabric as a diffuser, seriously, manipulating window light in all of its variations will teach you a lot about using lighting gear.

You’ll probably want to move on someday so that you can reproduce whatever you want/need no matter the weather or time of day. For that you’ll need a light (or lights), I suggest strobe (flash). Don’t be scared, it’s easy now with instant review. Start with what you have and go from there. A speedlight will do just fine as long as you have a way altering its quality. This is crazy simple, again any white surface will allow you to get a light as hard or soft as you want with a little fiddling. Any sort of white diffuser will do the same with more control. Play with what you have and be creative. Eventually you’ll want more power, more control, and more shots than puny batteries will provide. My recommendation is get one powerful but simple hard light and a big diffusion panel (you could make one but giant folding models are dirt cheap in the form of all those 5-in-one variations you can buy on Amazon), maybe some big white reflectors as well (I like V-flats and 4’ x 8’ foam board).

You’ll be amazed at how much you can do with one strobe, a diffusion panel, and a reflector. It might be all you need for the rest of your still-life (and portrait) career. Of course like your camera, you’ll need a way of holding them. You can use a fried or two to hold them. You don’t need specialized lighting grip for everything, I’ve improvised with a few boxes to old my large diffusers overhead of still-life arrangements more than I’d like to admit. I shot a whole workshop and many other things doing just that as evidenced by the shots at the top… Boxes on a table holding up a 60in diffusion panel over the setup, lit with a single speed light for the entire workshop with almost infinite effects. You definitely will want a light stand sooner or later but a clamp will do with any vertical mounting method for now.

This is where my vices come it. I will use just about any excuse to buy more lighting grip, lights, light modifiers, remote controls, booms, arms, back-drops, you name it. I have about 5 times more lighting gear than anyone ever would need given I shoot simple still-life and portraits. You know who might need a ton of lighting gear? Hollywood and anything like lighting a big set to look “natural” no matter the ambient conditions. I often will use the lighting related gear as an excuse to not do work. I am sure many of you do the same thing with cameras, lenses, tripods, and other things.

Inspiration and other psychological obstacles

It’s hard to get me out of bed, let along excited about much in the winter season. Inspired? Ha, I loose most of whatever the word might mean the moment the last leaf falls to the ground and it doesn’t come back until I start to see the leaves explode at some point in April.

The solution is to do practical things, to do things that challenge you, and best of all doing things for other people. Selling something on eBay? Make the best picture you can of the thing. I am dead serious make the mundane beautiful, don’t just phone it in. Do what all the “influencers” do make your lunch look amazing, at least make an ingredient or two look enviously great. I am sure you have friends, family, or institutions that have something they need photographed to sell on eBay/Etsy, to promote an event, to catalog. I will bet you most of these things are still-life projects or could be. Need to promote a book club meeting? Make a still life. How about a birthday party or any other get-together for anyone or any purpose, there is a still-life opportunity there. Step-up and do it, do the best you can. You will learn a lot but more importantly you’ll find something to “inspire” you along the way, you’ll form ideas for things you want to make you would never have thought of without doing the work.

And for those that need it… it’s okay, go ahead, buy that one piece of gear you absolutely “need” to do whatever the job is. Just don’t use gear as an excuse again, at least not this year.

Happy New Year and thank you for your support.

Excuses, excuses…

First off, I wanted to apologize for neglecting to put out a newsletter last week. Tuesday I was in day two of what I thought was a minor cold that started sometime late Saturday. I did try to get one out, I setup my little still-life studio with the intent of systematically evaluating Adobe’s “Super Resolution” features I briefly reviewed earlier when they were first released. I follow-ed that up again late last month…

My thoughts were exactly as I outlined in that previous post. I wanted to systematically test many of the notions I had based on the tests so far. Specifically I wanted to test my 20 megapixel camera against my 50 megapixel camera with the same glass. Some of the glass “good enough” and some superlative to reasonably determine my comfort level with using my low-megapixel camera as a substitute for my high-megapixel camera and under what conditions I’d actually do that. I also wanted to determine once-and-for-all what produced the best results; A great lens with lower megapixels using “Super Resolution” or a so-so lens using significantly more native resolution.

As the day wore on my physical condition grew significantly worse. A few hours in and I was growing frustrated with my setup. I was making mistake after mistake. By lunchtime I was spent. I accomplished nothing beyond producing a few examples that reconfirmed some of my initial observations as well as reconfirming I still hate my iPad for work like this. In all fairness my condition may have contributed to my iPad animosity, we’ll leave that for evaluation when I am more rational. Fast-forward, I am still sick. Yep the entire holiday season. I probably had something to do with that as I kept pushing myself to the point of spending an entire day out in the cold the moment I felt even a little better. No more of that.

Thank all of you and best wishes for 2026

I didn’t want to let the year’s end go by without mentioning a couple things. The first is a warm, sincere thank you to all of our subscribers, especially those who contribute a few hard-earned dollars to help us keep going. The second thing is to wish all of you a happy, successful, and wonderful 2026.

I also wanted to encourage you in your work and in all of our shared love for printed photographic art. It’s winter in the northern hemisphere and for many of you that is not a great time for making outdoor work. That doesn’t mean there aren’t many productive and rewarding endeavors to participate in. Just a reminder to all of the things you might want to consider when the weather is not productive for your particular photographic endeavors.

• It’s a great time to finally organize your work, to make sense of it, and give it an editorial voice.

• Use the next couple of months to host a small local showing of your work, it is not impossible, be creative. Look for venues, it might be easier and closer than you imagine. A lot of our newsletters in the last quarter were focused on doing just that.

• Go see other people’s work. Don’t only go to museums, search out smaller venues close to home as well.

• Heck, go to a museum. There are plenty of great photography exhibitions there.

• If you’re close visit your local Leica store, there’s almost always a great display of photographic work to be had (just one thing to like about Leica even if you’re not a Leica shooter). Look here…

• Do what I recommend more than once as a wintertime activity… Teach yourself to shoot still-life.

Shoot some still-life, even just a little bit

You really don’t need much. Try some skylight through a large window. You cannot move the light but you can move what you are making pictures of. Experiment, get yourself a large white reflector of some sort. Nothing fancy, I prefer big hunks of white foam-board. In a pinch you can make one from any old white fabric. Move on from there and experiment.

Still life is not “easy” but can be extremely rewarding as well as practical. Don’t make it too difficult before producing any results. You’ll be surprised how much you learn and how quickly subject matter and ideas pile-up. Stuff in your pockets… the reflections or microcosms of what you’re working on, thinking about, and even things you’re writing down. Are you going to make yourself lunch… the material is endless but I assure you you’ll start to get ideas that will influence all of your photographic endeavors. The trick, like most things is just get started and it will take on a life of it’s own before you know it.

For a little bit of inspiration I’ll refer you to a Leica event mentioned above. Specifically Sarah Schorr’s Ephemeral Field Journal event at the Leica Store in Boston. It seems this event is more still-life photographs of her actual mixed-media work. Looking at her website much of her publications uses photography to show a lot of that mixed-media work as well as some environmental photography to enhance her multi-faceted art. Just viewing some of how she uses photography to supplement her main work has inspired some things for my own photographic projects related to my local environment and specifically my Watercolors mini-project I walked through in this newsletter.

Winter does not have to be a dead-zone for your own work either.

It’s fairly obvious these new features are built specifically for event photographers first and possibly portrait photographers. My bigger question is how useful might they be for photographers or projects that are not “people” focused. Before I attempt to summarize my findings, some readers might be asking; “what new culling features?”. If you’ve not seen them, forgot about them, or ignored them since they were introduced, you can see them by going to the Library menu and turning them on by choosing Assisted Culling…

By doing this you’ll see a few new sections over in the right-hand panel when in the Library module. These will be Assisted Culling and Culling Scores. The Assisted Culling section is where all the action is to be found. The Culling Scores is merely an explanation of how an individual image was scored in various categories that this new feature evaluates. I guess that’s okay but your own judgement is far better.

This is my first go-around with these new features ostensibly labeled “Early Access” much like other new features have showed up in the year or two so I would expect that they are subject to change in the near term. I promised a follow-up for both Lightroom and Capture One in the last newsletter. I don’t have any sort of best practices or even a solid opinion on how helpful they might be yet. The two take-aways that I can give you so far are that they might help you and they definitely can and do work for non-people oriented projects.

Here’s the scenario of my initial testing which was completely arbitrary but happened to have a folder containing a couple dozen “people” shots and a few hundred non-people shots. You must choose at least one of the criteria of subject focus, eye focus, and eyes open.

• I chose “subject focus” as the only one really relevant to the vast majority of the folder’s content. I wanted to see how it might determine what the subject was if there were no people. I settled on a value of 60 for subject focus.

• I used the subject focus slider to scrub around in combination with the auto stack functions set to “similar” only (you can also choose time) and then used the sliders to visually see what was being rejected and what was being stacked.

• Finally I used the “Batch Actions” to set metadata of a “rejected flag” on all of the images that were rejected that I used just to test that feature. There are a lot of different things you can do to with batch actions and it’s well worth exploring. In this case I used the rejected flag to quickly eyeball the results of messing around with the subject focus slider while retaining results of my initial settings using the flag.

I didn’t really need the new culling features as I’d already used my own culling method and had the images divided into groups of will use, can use, might use, and won’t use represented by 3-star, 2-star, 1-star, and unrated. I was most interested in 3-star images that were rejected by the culling feature and no star images that were selected. Sort of the opposites of what I would pick vs. what was promoted by the culling parameters.

So what did I learn? First and foremost is that the auto-stacking “Stack by Visual Similarity” can be very useful playing with the slider for everyone no matter if you photograph events, people, or anything else. It’s especially useful due to the ability to do that independently of time shot. Putting visually similar images together can really aid a lot of culling no matter if you do it via back-and-forth or use the compare view. This can save a lot of time and it seems to work reasonably well on just about any subject.

A few other things I learned given I shoot a lot of “people” focused shots and how images are rejected if there are no people.

• Be very very careful as all of the criteria that culling will use has no idea what you are trying to do. Intentional motion blur? Gone for the most part. As someone that does this a lot… yes, that’s not helpful.

• People in the background where you intentionally focus on some other thing, gone. Even event photographers do this with say a wedding cake in the foreground, focus on the knife with the couple in the background. Be careful…

• There does not seem to be a way to individually “un-reject” a photo which might be helpful as in the case above. Yes there are work-arounds such as using a star rating or label or flag to work around this but it certainly makes the baked in “View Selects” a whole lot less useful. In fact it makes “View Rejects” more useful so that you can flag or rate rejects you want to retain. It’s just a lot slower than my proposed feature.

• Shallow depth of field seems to always account for less of a “subject in focus” score. In fact there are many cases where a shallow DOF causes a reject because when there are no people Lightroom fails to identify the intentionally really sharp area as a subject.

• There are many cases with non-people photos are rejected and other very similar photos with similar sharpness and composition are not. In fact examining these very similar photos and where sharp focus lands, I have no clue why one was “selected” and the other “rejected”. I won’t bother showing you the many examples of this but you’d have an impossible time explaining it as well. Why? Because every time you think you might know, there’s always a counter shot that debunks the theory.

Bottom line, these features can be useful to many photographers no matter what genre even in their current form but be very careful to look through those rejected and develop an override mechanism so you don’t lose some of your favorites. I hope to see a bit more control over the parameters and some features that are focused on other genres.

If you’ve explored these new culling features we’d love to hear your thoughts. As always thanks go out to all of our readers, especially those that help us keep the lights on with paid subscriptions.

Workshop Update

We’ve opened a new date (May 2, 2026) for our most popular workshop — Intro To Fine Art Printing. This one-day workshop fills up quick as we strictly limit attendance to four participants. You can find more information and sign-up over at Les’ website.

In this screencast I’ll be using Adobe Lightroom Classic but the concept applies to Capture One, Bridge, or just about any other image management software out there. Below I’ll describe the recipe I use step by step for Lightroom.

Read more