I've never heard of him so thanks for the heads up. I don't mind his personality I suppose, but this feels like ten minutes of content delivered over a half hour. I actually lol'd when he said it was mandatory to split grade print P3200. Near the end he said "let me recap", and I said please lord, no, just no.
I like that he is enthusiastic, but honestly, I could only listen to him for seven to eight minutes and then take a break, and listen to him for seven or eight minutes and take a break, etc. Probably says more about me than him.
There were a couple of other things that I thought were a little off the wall besides the lifestyle thing. He said he shot this assignment, and he submitted images both from his 5D and presumably his Leica to his agency, which oh by the way is the best agency and represents only the best photographers. He said that he went back and forth with the agency for months about problems with his 5D files and there were 22 things they had to fix, but his film shots were perfect. So he saw the light and went back to shooting film exclusively. I would note that the 5D was introduced in 2005. I wonder if digital cameras have improved? So that sounded to me like an old story which he has repeated so often is just pops out of his mouth whenever he starts talking about film. I know I sometimes have to catch myself so I don't repeat the same old thing over and over. I can just hear an exchange between you and someone else about your choice to shoot film, where you say you shoot film because some expert on YouTube told you digital sucked in 2005. There are a lot of good reasons to shoot film; digital sucking in 2005 is not one of them.
The other thing that sort of got me was when he said people who shoot digital always bring up all the limitations of film, like you only have 36 exposures, and you can't change the ASA mid-roll, and whatnot, but that it is actually those limitations which make film great because they force you "to use your fucking brain". My take on this is that if you need to have a lot of external constraints on you in order "to use your fucking brain", then maybe you have some other issues to might want to work on. This is like the old trope that analog slows you down which film enthusiasts like to trot out pretty regularly, as if it is some sort of aspect of human nature that when someone hands you a digital camera you are completely powerless to do anything other than spray and pray. I tend to shoot conservatively with digital because I don't want have to review and edit a thousand shots of the same thing even if they are free. But I guess if you can't help yourself and are simply unable to control your behavior, then maybe film is the solution. The thing is a lot of film enthusiasts have motor drives for their film cameras, which sort of indicates that maybe this tendency to overshoot is more like a personality trait than an intrinsic quality of digital. Personally, I just have a winder which I never use because in my experience the decisive moment usually occurs sometime between frames no matter how fast the winder or motor drive goes. Besides, a winder or motor drive adds bulk and weight to the camera. About the only upside of a winder or motor drive is that it makes that mechanical whirring noise so you you can pretend you are David Hemmings straddling that model in
Blowup. Speaking of
Blowup, my takeaway from that movie is that if you are taking pictures in a park, you should be shooting Panatomic-X, but I guess that wouldn't have made much of a movie.
And then the killer comment he made was something to the effect that if you are talking about the process of making photographs rather than the photographs themselves you are an amateur. So I thought that was pretty ironic in light of the fact that all 34:57 of the video was about process and he never showed us a photo, although he did show us his Leica and his Hasselblad. I think, but am not certain, that he said his Leica was an M4*, but I am certain that he told us that his Hasselblad was a 503CW, and that it took a digital back. Why he told us his Hasselblad 503CW took a digital back when he was telling us all about why shooting film is so great is a head scratcher to me. But obviously if he has a Leica and a Hasselblad he is a real photographer and knows what he is talking about.
So anyway, on the whole, I enjoyed the video and obviously the guy likes what he does, and likes to tell you about it. Nothing wrong with that. You sure wouldn't want to listen to a guy go on and on for a half an hour or so about something he was ambivalent about. Of course, there is a fine line between being enthusiastic and sounding like you are selling a veg-a-matic. I think he navigated that aspect pretty well. And irrespective of his views on film and digital, he seems like a very creative guy.
* In the next video he confirms that his Leica is an M4 "German, black paint, first batch". I mean he didn't want us to be confused and think he was shooting a Leica made in Canada or anything, because everyone knows the only thing worse than shooting digital is shooting film with a Leica made in Canada. This is when he says he likes the simplicity of going into the field with his Leica and a plastic box of film in a mesh thong Speedo**, as opposed to the fire drill of going into the field with an XT4*** with a booster, all the lenses. two XT2s, a Sony ZV1, a GoPro, two audio recorders, and a drone. I don't know why he is taking all that digital stuff into the field. I thought he shot film. If you are going to lower yourself to shooting digital, I'd suggest the simplicity of taking just an XT4 without a booster into the field and leaving the plastic box of film and mesh thong Speedo at home. But, as he says: "It's nice to not be able to see what you are doing." Seems to me like he should be shooting a Leica MDa.
** I recommend that you not Google "mesh thong Speedo".
*** Extra credit if anyone can explain how he makes "films" for YouTube with his XT4.
