007 — Ghosting

A change in direction for my newsletter. The future, films from a not-faulty camera and some fantastic viewing on Netflix.

It’s been a moment, hasn’t it!

I’m Jamie and you signed up for this newsletter just as I took some time away over the summer. A break in my work during the school holidays was semi-anticipated — I’m the parent with the flexible schedule so got to spend 6 weeks (goofing off) with my son. He’s only five and this is his first year of schooling, but it already feels like these vast swathes of time together won’t last for long. Being kind to myself, I put no pressure to accomplish anything other than swimming, surfing and adventures together.

The future of this newsletter

The break came at a good time though. I’ve been in a quandary of what to do with this site. I’ve debated platform, content, design, format, purpose and whether I should even continue! Six issues is early for such a major inflection point, but I realised after issue 003 that some course-corrections were required. Namely…

Platform

I chose Ghost initially to break the repetitive-site-building-funk I was stuck in, but that hasn’t necessarily improved as I try to work out what I want from my website.

Ghost clearly sees a cohort of subscription-paying members as the ultimate end game for creators, which it may well be. Craig Mod has written extensively about the permission that memberships grant, and I find the idea seductive from a creator's perspective.

However I’m hesitant to add another subscription to the world. Could I justify a monthly or annual subscription? I’d be more comfortable offering paid prints, books, etc to support what I do here.

Where Ghost has shone is the conversations with readers it had enabled. I stopped using analytics on my websites a long time ago, so have had no barometer for how many people are reading my site and how intently. Newsletter sign-ups have been a fantastic indicator, and on the back of a quick “hello, thank you for subscribing“ email I’ve had many wonderful conversations.

This is the biggest reason I want to continue with a newsletter, rather than revert to a straight blog.

Newsletter

Newsletters will be published roughly every two weeks, and will contain a mixture of updates on projects, interesting links I’ve found and ideas. Think of it as a curated summary of what goes into my notebooks. This issue is a great (albeit a touch introspective & meta) example.

Essays

Much of what I want to write deserves more time and space than a regular newsletter affords. The internet at large is a firehose of half-baked ideas, but rather than contribute to the din, I’ll publish essays of depth and quality a few times a year. I hope to offer these as offline PDFs, perhaps as well as printed copies. Could these be a viable alternative to subscriptions, as travel photographer Roman Fox has decided?

Ethos

An idea that I found when reading CJ Chilver’s book “Principles for Newsletters” is what pushed me over the edge, and convinced me to make these changes.

Your site, blog, and newsletter should be 100% you. It’s where you build your reputation. You own the reader experience. […] You own every pixel of your subscribers’ experience.

“Owning the experience” is a concept that I’ve decided to adopt more widely as a useful North Star. It’s prompted me to tighten up my image editing and be more ruthless when culling — actually deleting and forever letting go of images I’ll never share. I don’t want anything appearing under my name that doesn’t meet my values.

The rosey, professional all-is-well facade is something I’m being mindful to keep away from. So many of us online — particularly creatives — feel a highly polished veneer is necessary. Thanks to conversations with readers, it’s clear that we all struggle with the same hang-ups and insecurities. Imposters Syndrome is widely talked about — if only in hushed tones — amongst software developers, but I’m certain it affects all of us.

The best way to help quiet this sense of not being worthy is to talk openly and frankly about what you’re working on. What’s not gone well? Why are things not as you expected? Because projects rarely go as planned, yet we pretend they went without a hitch! Even this issue presented me a load of problems…

• I came back after some time away from the website, thinking I had complete clarity on how to proceed. My next steps were obvious. This plan didn’t survive first-contact with the actual work however.
• I’d long thought that issue 007 would discuss the colour grading of recent James Bond films. A cutesy play on the leading zeros in my issue numbers, but something I wanted to explore regardless. The change in format of this newsletter means that exploration has been bumped to a longer essay. Should I even mention the 007 link I had planned? Too late I guess!

When something as simple as a newsletter can go awry, surely we can all see that large, intricate projects, that possibly depend on many people, access and timing are almost certain to have hiccups.

Issue 003 where I discussed The Builder’s High and my issues with burn out and YouTube addiction was a heartwarming lesson. The fantastic response from many others who found some (hard) truths, shows it’s probably been the most valuable-to-other-people article I’ve written, despite being the most personal. This isn’t a license to turn these pages into an Agony Aunt, but it’s an indication that there’s space to be honest and more human in what we share. Whether that’s in person, or across the internet.

Updates

The past few weeks have been spent getting back in the swing of things since school started. I’ll confess that little work has been accomplished as we’ve had a surprise run of good weather and good swell. Naturally I’ve been surfing most days, enjoying a new board from none other than Ollie Cooper. It’s a huge jump down in size (5’7”) and volume (~33 litres) for me — you can see it compared below to my other wooden board made by Bosiny — but I’ve already had a load of fun with it. It catches waves more easily than boards a foot longer, but is so fast and agile. It kind of defies belief!

This particular board was shaped whilst Ollie was at OPEN — where my photo shoot took place — which is now unfortunately just a memory. It’s nice to have a physical reminder of that place and the people I met there.

Sending the Leica M2 to Cameraworks

After a brief chat with Alan at Cameraworks, it was decided that shooting a test roll would be a waste. The negatives from the last roll indicated a rapidly worsening issue with the shutter, if only it’s tension. A full strip down and rebuild — along with fitment of a Rapid Load Kit — should see it back in my hands just before Christmas. This feels like a long time, but Alan was quick to point out it’s roughly a year earlier than the camera’s return date had it been sent to Leica in Wetzlar!

Cameraworks offer excellent repaints — and were responsible for the M2’s current coat of Olive Green Cerakote — so I briefly considered a repaint to match my black paint M10-R. On balance I decided getting the camera back in my hands sooner was more important than its colour. Besides, I bought this specific M2 because of its unique Olive Green colour and that repaint could buy a fair few rolls of film!

Of course I had the urge to shoot film along with a quantity of soon-to-expire rolls after sending the M2 away. Fortunately a trip to visit family in Guernsey coincided with calmer waters, and presented an opportunity for another beleaguered 35mm of mine — a Nikonos V. This particular camera seems to drag its shutter, or behave as if it’s in Bulb mode whenever it hits the water. Fine when on dry land, but I’ve yet to get a full roll without at least a handful of overexposed frames. You can feel the shutter clicking at odd intervals, so you know when you’ve lost a shot.

Weirdly, every shutter speed operates correctly when testing it without film. It defies bench testing. Theories of leaks were quickly put aside, leaving perhaps the rapid change in temperature as it’s issue?

I opted to shoot it manually whilst in Guernsey, using the meter for guidance but selecting the correct speed as I was often shooting into the sun. Two totally unspoilt rolls of 36 exposures apiece would suggest that issue actually lies with aperture-priority. The meter knows what shutter speed is correct, and the shutter timing is accurate enough — electronically controlled, rather than mechanical — so it’s safe to assume that whatever circuitry joining the meter to the shutter control to enable aperture-priority is faulty. Another win for mechanical, manual cameras. At least now I can look forward to a winter of gritty Tri-X surf photography!

Links

A better scanning backlight

This is a fantastic write up from Jack Whittaker on what it takes to scan colour negative film (C-41) well. Even companies charging serious money for scanning backlights aren’t using narrowband RGBs as far as I can tell. Jack explains why it’s important.

Andrea Bianco

I discovered Andrea’s website after searching for info on the Nikon Z6 II (he doesn’t think much of them by the way). I was also starting to examine the colour grade of “No Time to Die” and was struck by how similar (and good) the colours from the Positive Film filter in Andrea’s beloved Ricoh GR2 were. He puts this little camera to exceptional use, demonstrating it’s not about the camera, but the photographer holding it.

“Ripley” on Netflix

This black and white series starring Andrew Scott has been doing the rounds with many people recommending it to me for both the story and the cinematography. Beyond using monochrome exceptionally well, it’s a masterclass in interesting composition, lighting and sequencing of frames. This is one to examine closely!

I would often get a “did you also shoot it in colour?” when showing my wife monochrome photos. After watching Ripley, she understands why I love black and white so much.

“The Perfect Couple” on Netflix

Another short series that at the outset looks to be the usual shallow Netflix content, but belies a good story and some belting lines from fun characters! Directed by Susanne Bier — who was also behind ”The Night Manager” which I loved — it creates a wonderful who-dunnit mystery amongst a wealthy family with plenty of secrets to hide. Recommended as something to watch over a couple of weekends, not taking anything too seriously.

Thanks for reading. Next time I’ll have some updates on the site as well as Native Grain (yes, for real this time)!