Photoded

“Everyone, in both personal and professional experience, is familiar with moments of regret, of chances seen but not seized. But photographers might have this sensation more often than most.” – Andrew Moore, from Photographs Not Taken Photographs Not Taken is a book about photography in which there is not a single photograph. It’s a collection of essays by 62 photographers about the ones that got away: the images — burned to memory and conscience — that, for one reason or another, the photographer could not make. The photo community has grasped this little book to its bosom. The premise is simple and the emotions expressed, often by big-name photographers — Jim Goldberg, Emmet Gowin, Todd Hido, Nadav Kander, Mary Ellen Mark, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Sylvia Plachy, Mark Power, Alessandra Sanguinetti, to name a few — are common to us all. Readers learn that talented photographers experience wobbles just like anyone else, and that photography, as it reflects life, can be a struggle. PNT is now in its second run after the first edition sold out in March. Editor Will Steacy began soliciting the essays over five years ago. In a clumsy effort to share material with interested contributors, Steacy posted essays online in a blog format but didn’t password-protect the URL. Within 24 hours of e-mailing the blog to collaborators, it had gone viral. “I woke up in Vegas after a shoot, had a cup of coffee, sent the e-mail out, went to the airport, and got on a plane. When I arrived back in New York that evening my inbox was flooded with e-mail,” he recalls. Steacy, who doesn’t have a Facebook account and describes himself as a “Neanderthal” when it comes to technology, quickly put the kibosh on the short-lived liking, tweeting and sharing, and deleted the blog, but the frantic fascination during those few days of teasing access confirmed he was on to a good thing. The final published work doesn’t disappoint. Many of the essays focus on ethical dilemmas. On the outskirts of Lahore in Pakistan, Ed Kashi is jolted from his journalist M.O. by a filmmaker friend to help the victims of a fatal traffic collision. Joseph Rodriguez, with memories of his own addicted parents, steps in when one of his subjects, a crack-addled man, is shaping to assault his wife. In a harrowing tale, Misty Keasler describes a drunken father’s abuse against his daughters to prove to the photographer how desperate life was for his ostracized gypsy families. “I would never be able to reconcile the fact that violence, especially against children, had been created for me,” writes Keasler. The book also includes lighthearted moments. Michael Meads recalls the last hurrah of an aging New Orleans drag queen. And Matt Salacuse recounts the moment he raised his camera to snap an image of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and their newly adopted baby, only for Cruise to command, “You’re not doing that.” “It must have been some crazy Scientologist voodoo mind trick, because I looked at him and said, ‘You are right. I am not.’ And I didn’t,” writes Salacuse. For the most part, however, the contributors are earnest, and even grave. Elusive images are mourned and in their place robust memories are inserted. It’s all quite bittersweet. Steacy refers collectively to photographers’ memories as “mental negatives,” as if to suggest photographers’ eyes and the proteins and synapses of memory are wired differently. Certainly photographers — by nature or nurture — are visual beings, but, ironically, PNT’ s essays render these mental negatives in ways the lost images could not. The task of singling out one memory invariably summons meditation on life’s fundamentals — the love of family (Carucci, Jordan, Sanguinetti); the absence of family (Elkins); the loss of home (Patterson); threatened lives (Mosse, Webb). For all their devotion to photography, the consensus among the essayists is that images on paper and in pixels are mere reflections of — and no substitute to — lived experience. And when life is extinguished or hangs by a gossamer thread, photographers’ own motives and compulsions to record are under the fiercest of self-examinations. Photographer Simon Roberts finds himself unable to shoot a portrait at the deathbed of Priscilla Dzvengwe, a young Zimbabwean girl. “The girls, including Priscilla began to cry as they sang. For the first time in my career, I felt physically unable to take a photograph. It was a moment to be lived, not framed…. A photograph could not have conveyed the horrors that Priscilla had experienced in her short life nor her acknowledgement that she would soon be leaving this world,” writes Roberts. In a book about lack and loss, perhaps it is unsurprising that many of the essays focus on death. For example, due to cultural beliefs, Zwelethu Mthethwa’s family denied him permission to photograph his dead mother at her funeral. “No image of the body must exist after its life is gone…. I realize that, in fact, the final image could never have been that specific photograph. The image was, and remains to this day, a nuanced and ever shifting conglomeration of the memories [of my mother] themselves,” he writes. Peter Van Agtmael’s story from an Iraqi cemetery taught him only that “even the spiritual leadership was not immune to the war’s dehumanizing effects.” The photograph he did not take was of a military chaplain relieving himself while the soldiers radioed in their position. “He zipped up, turned around, and declared it a ‘holy piss.’ As I gawked, rivulets of urine snaked onto the sun baked hump of what was clearly a child’s grave. The patrol moved on,” Van Agtmael writes. Conversely, Jim Goldberg’s trigger finger was stayed by the beginning of life — during his wife’s long and painful labor. “There was no way in hell I would use a camera to miss those incredible moments,” he writes. It’s comforting to know that even the best photographers question the purpose and act of image making and that when it comes to life and death, the full sensory experience outside any potential frame is of more importance. Photographs Not Taken is not a book about regret; it’s about gratitude. The missed opportunities are merely the back-stories to photographers’ appreciation for life. And for one contributor, that life was cut short. Before Tim Hetherington was killed by a mortar last year while he was working in Libya, he submitted an essay that deals honestly about the perennial photojournalist’s dilemma of how to depict foreigners and when to photograph trauma and death. In his essay, Hetherington describes the aftermath of a road accident in Liberia for which he’s “too far gone to be able to attempt any recording” of the dozens of injured and dead. While understandable, he criticizes himself that earlier that same day he had “no qualms” photographing five tortured corpses. His constant questioning of his own biases is admirable. When selecting images from Liberia for Infidel , a book about American soldiers in Afghanistan, he chose not to include a graphic shot of an American shot in the head out of respect, but notes he had not hesitated publishing a similar image of a “nameless African.” Hetherington, more than most photographers, pushed discussions about what interests images served. He handled visual documents responsibly in a frenetic digital world. He made choices based upon, not only his subject, but also his audience. His essay adds to his already considerable legacy. The 200+ pages of Photographs Not Taken do not focus on amazing light, or compositions missed, but on humanity seen, remembered, cherished, learned and broken. Maybe photography can’t live up to experience. Maybe photography steals away – or sullies – the preciousness of memory. After reading Photographs Not Taken , those moments of hesitation, so warmly shared, are far more arresting than some of the most engaging photographs. As Aaron Schuman speculates, those memories are “perhaps the photographs kept, not taken.” – – – – – - Book-reading : Amy Elkins, Eirik Johnson and Michael Itkoff, founder of Daylight will read excerpts from Photographs Not Taken and be in discussion at Ampersand Bookstore and Gallery in Portland, OR on May 11th at 7:30pm.

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Must Read: The Photographs That Got Away From Famous Shooters

Leica is expanding its Leica S medium-format system with five new central shutter (leaf shutter) lenses, with availability from October 2012. Read more and comment

Leica has combined with luxury fashion house Herm

Here’s a recipe for success: Take two of the hottest, fastest-growing websites in the world and mash them together. That’s exactly what Pek Pongpaet, 35, and Brandon Leonardo, 28, did this week when they launched Pinstragram , which uses the famous waterfall layout of Pinterest to create a platform for viewing your Instagram photos on the web. “I think Pinstagram fills an important void because Instagram never focused on the desktop experience,” says Pongpaet. There are plenty of third-party apps that allow you to view Instragram photos on the web, but we suspect that none will have the success of Pinstagram, which has already made quite a splash, with thousands visiting the site. Aditya Herlambang, an iOS developer, has also just joined their team and is building a Pinstagram iPad app. Pongpaet and Leonardo say the idea for the project was actually kind of a joke that only came to them last Friday. Over lunch the pair, who are also co-founders of the startup Tapisto.com , said they were joking about the famous “X for Y” pitches that often happen when companies are pitching venture capital firms. Take Spotwag, for example, which could be called an “AirBnB for dogs.” They were playing around with combinations and came to the pairing of “a Pinterest for Instragram.” “We thought it would be hilarious to combine them because they are two of the hottest and most valuable companies on the planet,” Pongpaet says. While it remained a joke for a while, Leonardo says that he saw something click in Pongpaet, and later that day the wheels started turning. “The idea really took hold of me,” says Pongpaet. The next morning Pongpaet got in touch with Leonardo. “He was like, ‘Dude, you’ll never believe what I built,’” says Leonardo. It turns out Pongpaet had spent a chunk of the night developing their concept and already had a functional site that had brought their idea to life. “I’m sort of a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy,” Pongpaet says. After Pongpaet’s original draft the pair continued working and on Wednesday morning the site went live. So far they say the response has already been overwhelming. They haven’t been contacted by Pinterest or Instagram, but all the feedback they’ve gotten has been positive. They’re not sure what the future holds, but say they want to continue working on it and see where it goes. “We enjoy using it ourselves and want to continue to provide an optimized way for users to view their Instagram feed on the web,” Leonardo says.

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It’s Not a Joke Anymore: Someone Actually Built Pinstagram

The Leica M Monochrom is a new, black-and-white only full-frame digital rangefinder camera with a highly sensitive 18-megapixel monochromatic sensor. Read more and comment

The Leica APO-Summicron-M 50mm f/2 ASPH. is a new, apochromatic standard lens for the Leica M system. Read more and comment

We’ve prepared a hands-on preview of the Leica M-Monochrom 18MP black-and-white rangefinder. The M-Monochrom has no color filter array in front of the sensor, meaning it captures more of the available light but cannot perceive color. It also means there is no need for demosaicing (the process of combining color information from adjacent pixels), so higher levels of detail are retained. Our preview includes real-world samples we shot with the M-Monochrom, to show just what that means in-use.

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Just Posted: Leica M-Monochrom hands-on preview with image samples

Leica has unveiled a special edition of the Leica M9 full-frame digital rangefinder camera: the Leica M9-P ‘Edition Hermès’, limited to 300 units worldwide. Read more and comment

The Leica X2 is a 16-megapixel, large-sensor digital compact camera with a new, APS-C format CMOS imager and a 36mm equivalent Leica Elmarit 24mm f/2.8 ASPH. lens. Read more and comment

Leica has announced the M-Monochrom, a black-and-white version of its M9 full-frame rangefinder.

Leica has announced the X2, a 16MP APS-C compact camera with a fixed 36mm equivalent F2.8 lens. The camera is an updated version of its X1, with the biggest changes being the use of a 16.2MP CMOS sensor and the addition of an accessory socket for adding an optional 1.44M dot ‘Viso-Flex’ electronic viewfinder. An add-on handgrip is also available. Leica says it has improved the autofocus system (one of our biggest criticisms of the X1), but has retained the rather low-resolution 230,000 dot rear LCD. The X2 has a list price of $1,995.00. (Updated with first impressions of AF performance)

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Leica unveils X2 16MP premium large-sensor compact

Leica has released the V-Lux40, a 14MP, 20X compact superzoom camera. It is the second V-Lux model to feature GPS and appears to very closely resemble the Panasonic DMX-TZ30/ZS20. This gives it a 24-480mm equivalent zoom range and 14.1MP output (from a 15.3MP CMOS sensor). It also means it’s capable of capturing 1080 video. The camera also features the highest-res screen in the Leica range – a 460k dot 3.0″ LCD. Unlike the similar Panasonic, the Leica V-Lux 40 includes Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 and Premier Elements 10.

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Leica offers V-Lux40 20X 14MP compact superzoom

Adobe has announced a release candidate version of Adobe Camera Raw 7.1 and DNG Converter 7.1. The latest near-release version of the Raw processing plugin only works with Photoshop CS6 and brings support for the same 21 cameras that were added to Camera Raw 6.7 in the most recent update. This includes the Nikon D800m Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the most recent releases from Samsung.

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Adobe launches release candidate of Adobe Camera Raw v7.1

PermaJet hss announced that all users of the PermaJet range of papers are automatically entitled to use the company’s new free ICC Custom Profiling Service. Read more and comment

> Photo: Bieke Depoorter > View all Photographer Bieke Depoorter has been traveling around Russia and the United States asking random people on the street if she can sleep at their homes on and off for the past three years. The result is a series of eerily intimate photos that capture the inside lives of people and families throughout these two countries. “It’s all been very accidental,” says Depoorter, who lives in Belgium. “And that’s what I like. It’s like a surprise every night.” In 2008, Depoorter, now 25, decided to travel to Russia for a school photo project, though she had no idea what exactly that would be. She had a friend write her a note in Russian that she could present to people asking them for shelter at night if she ever needed it. The note came in handy. Depoorter needed a place to stay a couple of times and ended up photographing the families she stayed with. She quickly realized that these photos were the project she was looking for. She went on to spend three months sleeping in strangers’ homes. The photos are not photojournalism or some kind reportage about Russia, says Deprooter. She’s not trying to tell some kind of complete or linear story. Instead, she wants her photos to be about the quick, but surprisingly open, relationships she developed each night. “I was there as a person, not as a photographer,” she says. “The first thing was not to take pictures; it was about being with the people and the photographs would come as the come.” Depoorter doesn’t speak Russian, but instead of being a liability, her ignorance actually facilitated the encounters. “You end up communicating in another way, a more honest way, a more personal way,” she says. Her pictures capture small yet genuine moments that don’t feel forced or preconceived. This is partly because any time Depoorter feels like she is taking a “good” photo, she says, she puts her camera down. She says she doesn’t want to have an audience in her head dictating what she should be shooting or influencing how she sees. The moments have to happen on their own and can’t be tarnished by her need to capture them. “It’s all about the feeling,” she says. “Sometimes I want to feel like I’m amazed, and sometimes I want to feel like I’m struggling.” Here in the United States, Depoorter has been working on a similar travel project since 2010. She’s visited the States five times, flying into major cities like Dallas or Memphis and then heading out on the road to small-town America. She gets around by hitchhiking, and like in Russia, randomly asks people she meets on the street if she can stay with them. Not surprisingly, she’s had some interesting encounters. In Louisiana, Depoorter stayed in a home where the majority of the family was addicted to crack cocaine. In one of the photos she made, the son is pretending like he’s going to stab his mom with a kitchen knife. The picture is quite striking, but it also demonstrates Depoorter’s ability to enter people’s lives in a shockingly short amount of time. One of the main differences between her Russian and American projects is that Depoorter speaks English. As a result, she says, people immediately want to tell her their stories, which changes the way the photos come about. Instead of capturing an atmosphere or a feeling, like she did in Russia, Depoorter says her photos in the State are much more about individuals. Like her Russian project, she’s not trying to photograph the “essence” of the United States or its people. She just wants to make photos. “I have these relationship with people, not with ‘Americans,’” she says. “It’s strange for me to try and say things about what ‘Americans’ are. I’ve had good experiences and bad experiences there. It’s the same as Russia.” The work has earned Depoorter a Magnum Expression Award, and more recently she was selected as a participant in the 19th annual World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. Her photos from Russia were published in a book called Ou Menya and she hopes the same will be true for her work from the United States. Depoorter, who is a member of the Tendance Floue collective, says she is not finished with the project and has plans to return to the States early next year. She has also started shooting a similar project in Cairo. “Maybe there will be a moment where I can put all the photos together from the series and it won’t matter where it’s taken,” she says. “It sounds like a cliché, but again this is not journalism, it’s not important where the photos are taken. It’s always about the people.” On May 25 Depoorter will have an exhibition in Ghent, Belgium, from her first book Ou Menya and also her project from the United States which is called “I am about to call it a day.” The exhibit will be up until Sept. 23 and can be found at the Kunsthal Sint—Pietersabdij Ghent.

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Scenes From Spending the Night With Strangers

Lensbaby has announced the availability of its Pro Effects Kit, which bundles the Lensbaby Composer Pro with Sweet 35 Optic, the Edge 80 Optic, Macro Converters, Lens Cleaning Cloth and the Lensbaby System Bag. Read more and comment

Nikon has posted firmware updates for the Nikon 1 V1 and J1 compact system cameras. Read more and comment