Writing on Photography /  by Nathan Jones

In 2010/2011, I ran a film-photography blog called The Photon Fantastic (now defunct). During this time, I wrote several among the following series of articles as part of a larger, collaborative project called The Beginner's Guide to Film Photography, which unfortunately was never finished. I am collecting them here as a navigational aid for newcomers to this blog, and also as the first step in my own return to the project. I intend to complete the writing by mid-2025 and publish the guide as a book by the end of that year.

I've also written less technical, more philosophical, and much more opinionated articles about photography. They say I'm polarizing. Oh well.

I'm fascinated by the multitude of ways that photographers think and speak about their art. To my mind, photography is a very slippery thing and it takes a lot of thinking to penetrate the surface of what it is. Here's a (growing) collection of thoughts on photography by great practitioners and critics.

If you’re interested in the tools of the trade, I have begun to write detailed experiential and technical reviews of the cameras in my collection, beginning with the Nikon bodies. To date these are:

Mechanical. Rugged. Reliable. My review of the Nikon FM2 now Published /  by Nathan Jones

The Nikon FM2 enjoyed a production run of almost two decades—and for most of that time, it was an anachronism, even by Nikon’s own standards. When the FM2 was released in 1982, the electronically controlled FE, which included aperture-priority auto-exposure—a feature conspicuous for its absence in the FM2—had already been in production for 4 years; only a year later, Nikon unveiled the “technocamera” or FA, which premiered what came to be known as matrix metering and also incorporated shutter-priority auto-exposure for the first time in a Nikon body; and, at the same time, the company added autofocusing to its flagship camera, in the F3AF model. Until the time the FM2 was finally discontinued in 2001, Nikon continued to iterate its professional line of cameras, including introducing the F4 (1988) and the F5 (1996), while only giving the FM2 a modest upgrade (in 1984, to the FM2N, which featured a new, titanium-bladed shutter and an increased X-sync speed from 1/125 s to 1/250 s). Nikon’s high-end line also underwent an evolution during this period, including introduction of the F90 (1992), F90x (1996), and F100 (1999) series of semi-professional cameras, while the FE was upgraded to the comparatively short-lived FE2 (1983-1987). In its consumer offerings, Nikon experimented across a wide range of cameras with plastic components, new form factors, and electronically-controlled, automatic shooting modes tailored to beginning photographers. And all the while, the venerable, rugged, reliable FM2 looked on, essentially unchanged, inheriting none of these improvements. The frothy competition between the major Japanese brands in the 1980s and 90s gave rise to many innovations, some useful and others faddish. This “progress” in camera technology left the FM2 behind—and yet, the camera only appreciated in value and found its way into the bottom of many a professional’s camera bag as a trusty back-up. The FM2 was a loyal friend that could be relied upon to keep shooting when batteries died and temperatures reached –40 ℃.

Continue reading …

Homeward Bound /  by Nathan Jones

In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed
When the sparrows stop their singing
And the sky is clear and red
When the summer’s ceased its gleaming
When the corn is past its prime
When adventure’s lost its meaning
I’ll be homeward bound in time

Bind me not to the pasture;
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I’ll return to you somehow

If you find it’s me you’re missing
If you’re hoping I’ll return
To your thoughts I’ll soon be listening
In the road I’ll stop and turn
Then the wind will set me racing
As my journey nears its end
And the path I’ll be retracing
When I’m homeward bound again

Bind me not to the pasture;
Chain me not to the plow
Set me free to find my calling
And I’ll return to you somehow

In the quiet misty morning
When the moon has gone to bed
When the sparrows stop their singing
I’ll be homeward bound again

Suburban Landscapes in Gaborone /  by Nathan Jones

A mind ripe for acquisitions /  by Nathan Jones

“Thus the wise man, at all times and on every road, carries a mind ripe for acquisitions that ordinary folk neglect. The humblest occupation is for him a continuation of the loftiest; his formal calls are fortunate chances of investigation; his walks are voyages of discovery, what he hears and his silent answers are a dialogue that truth carries on with herself within him. Wherever he is, his inner universe is comparing itself with the other, his life with Life, his work with the incessant work of all beings; and as he comes forth from the narrow space in which his concentrated study is done, one gets the impression, not that he is leaving the true behind, but that he is throwing his door wide open so that the world may bring to him all the truth given out in its mighty activities.”
— A. G. Sertillanges in The Intellectual Life (1921) translated from French by Mary Ryan