Speaking Frankly

From The Keppler Files: March, 1995

"Do you still take pictures?" This startling inquiry came from a longtime reader of my column and it really troubled me. While I am no longer in the first bloom of my photographic youth, my fingers have not gotten so arthritic that I can't press the shutter release, my legs still take me where I want to go, and I'm still curious enough to go snooping around photographically anywhere I get the chance, be it Biloxi, Mississippi, (where I haven't been yet) or Bora Bora (where I have). Scenics and people fascinate me, whether in faraway places or across the street -- and if I some day must resort to chomping on an air-release bulb to fire off the shutter with my teeth because the rest of me is inoperative, so be it.

Making Contact

Contact sheet as teacher.

In days of yore (meaning the mid-1950s and '60s), the worth of any photographer could be judged by the black-and-white contact sheets made from his negatives. Armed with the essential weapons -- at first a tinny flashlight/magnifier and later a 4X Schneider loupe -- photographers and picture editors would analyze the contact sheet images, separating the sheep from the goat pictures.

From The Keppler Files: September, 1991

As I've written many times over the years, you can save a lot of money by ordering SLR equipment through mail-order stores, often 30 to 50 percent less than what you might have to pay locally. And despite some people's reported frustrations in trying to deal with mail-order firms, purchasing can be done quite satisfactorily from a reputable store. Grungy stores can often be detected after talking with their salesmen for a moment or two; they act and sound grungy. Still, if you want to spar with the few nasty ones, you may get some fun from it and teach them a lesson or two.

From The Keppler Files: October, 1970

I enjoy photographers' mistakes particularly when the mistakes result in better pictures. What I dislike is the mistake defended as a deliberate experiment. One photographer I know still hasn't forgiven me 10 years later for correctly diagnosing the glowing yellow Kodachromes as products of a forgotten-on-the-camera K2 yellow filter. And the best wedding pictures I ever shot were made with a camera having a sticking shutter. Every picture was a blurry ethereal delight and not what I had intended at all.

From The Keppler Files: October, 1966

Color print quality for amateurs is not what it used to be -- thank God. Ten or 15 years ago, the best small prints made from topnotch Kodachrome or Kodacolor exposed in the best reflexes were not fit for serious photographic consumption. Today, the average camera store, mail-order finisher or drugstore supplier usually turns out color prints from inexpensive Instamatic cameras for 25 cents or so that will knock your eye out. Not always, mind you. There are slip-ups, and cut-rate color print prices are still liable to mean cut quality color prints.