Photography | FUJI X WEEKLY

Fujifilm X100F, The Chronicle Camera (At McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park)

Posted on February 11, 2018 by Ritchie Roesch

Train Ride Through The Christmas Tunnel – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

There are many reasons to photograph. It might be because someone is paying you money to do so. It could be because you want to hang a pretty picture on your wall. Perhaps you want to share what you ate for lunch with your social network followers. Maybe you have a message you want to photographically convey. Or it might be because you are compelled to create art. There are any number of reasons to take a picture.

Ever since I purchased my Fujifilm X100F, I have found myself much more than ever before using the camera to chronicle my family and the adventures we have. I’m documenting us, the Roesch family. This is something I’ve always done, but never to the extent that I’ve done over the last six months. I’ve captured a heck-of-a-lot of family snapshots lately.

There are several reasons why I’m photographing my family more, and it comes down to gear. The X100F is the perfect chronicle camera. It’s small and lightweight enough to fit in my pocket, so I carry it around with me and it’s never in the way. The image quality is nothing short of fantastic. Many of the different film simulations are great for people pictures. The leaf shutter and built-in fill-flash are great for portraits. It produces wonderful pictures right out of the camera that don’t require editing, so I’m not bogged down with post-processing.

That last point is an important one. I used to spend hours and hours and hours sitting in front of a computer screen editing RAW files. That’s time spent away from family. My workflow was constantly backlogged. I found myself purposefully not capturing images because I knew that meant editing them, which required time that I didn’t have. In fact, I still have thousands of RAW exposures sitting on hard drives that I never got around to post-processing.

Joyful Johanna – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

With the X100F, I not only have more time to capture pictures, but I’m also not worried about the time that I would have to spend with each image after exposure. I click the shutter and the image is done. It’s ready to be uploaded to the web (which is where I backup my pictures). I’ve saved so much time, and I believe that this more than anything accounts for why I’m now taking more family snapshots.

Years from now these pictures will be worth more to my family and I than any of the other ones. These will be the cherished photographs. I have an old box of slides that my grandparents captured, mostly in the 1950’s and 1960’s. There are images of Yosemite and Yellowstone and such in that box, but the pictures that are most interesting are the family snapshots. Pictures of my dad and his siblings as young kids, or my grandparents when they were young adults, are particularly fascinating.

The photographs in this post are from our family trip to Arizona last Christmas. There’s a really neat place in Scottsdale called the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, which is just an incredible place for any train enthusiast (and what kid isn’t a train enthusiast?). We spent an afternoon at the park, and these are the family snapshots that I captured. The kids had a blast! It was a really good couple of hours. Because I chronicled it with my camera–the adventure was documented–my kids and their future kids will have these treasured exposures. This will be meaningful to them.

The Fujifilm X100F is a great camera because, among other things, it makes family snapshots easy, producing excellent results without fuss. I’m so glad that I purchased it six months ago. I can’t wait to use it to chronicle the next family adventure, wherever and whenever that might be.

Looking Out The Bright Window – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Christmas Joy – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

What Time Does The Train Leave? – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Leaving The Station – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Learning Scale – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Joshua At The Train Museum – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Trolley Driver – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Bottle Time – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Happy Holiday Baby – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Happy Girls – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Joy On The Lighted Path – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Christmas Bulb Reflection – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Our Arizona Christmas – Scottsdale, AZ – Fujifilm X100F (captured by a stranger)

Better Curating

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Ritchie Roesch

Curtain Abstract – Mesquite, NV – Fujifilm X100F

I have a difficult time with curation. Frankly, I don’t curate well at all. I want to show all of my photographs. I’ll skip the bad ones (obviously), I’ll probably include a few mediocre ones, I’ll definitely share the good ones, and mixed within that will be the few great ones.

Great photographs don’t come around all that often. Ansel Adams stated that one great picture per month is a pretty good number. That was from one of the best photographers of all time who worked harder than most. I’m not going to capture a great photograph nearly as often as Ansel did, nor will it be as great.

Nowadays we are overwhelmed by images. There are more picture-takers now than ever before, and each picture-taker is taking more picture than ever before. And there are more means to get those pictures viewed by others than ever before. Everybody is sharing like mad on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc., etc., etc., and we see so many pictures each day that we are almost numb to it. It seems like you have to do so much more to get noticed.

Bike Rack Shadow -Farmington, UT – Fujifilm X100F

One problem is that so many of us are so terrible at curating our pictures. We post them all! We share on social media so many images. Good, bad or ugly, doesn’t matter. You snapped it so you share it. I’m just as guilty of this as everyone else. I’ve shown a number of awful pictures on social media. I’m downright embarrassed at some of the pictures that I’ve made public.

Yesterday’s post, Photoessay: 20 Fall Foliage Photographs, actually started out as 50 Fall Foliage Photographs. Yes, I was ready to publish a post containing 50 of my autumn photographs. I then realized that I desperately needed to curate it better. So I began to trim the ones that I knew were mediocre. I still had too many, so I cut out the ones that weren’t overtly autumn. I was closer, but I still had too many, so I cut out the worst of what remained. It was now at a much better number, down from 50 to 20. I don’t think any of them classify as “great” but I hope that all of them are at least good. I probably should have kept trimming until just the 10 best remained. Less is more is a good adage.

Sometimes (or, really, oftentimes) I have a hard time distinguishing which of my photographs are actually good and which ones are not. I put so much thought and care into each exposure, I have an emotional attachment to them. I’m biased towards my own pictures. I think that they’re better than they really are. I believe that this is a common problem.

The Company You Keep – Peoria, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

Time has a way of revealing which pictures are good and which ones are not. When I haven’t viewed an image for awhile, the emotional attachment fades. I can look back at my pictures from a year ago and much more easily separate the wheat from the chaff. Even more so for photographs that are two or three years old. I sometimes look at a picture and wonder how I ever thought it was any good.

My wife is good at distinguishing which photos are good and which ones aren’t. And she’s not afraid to tell me. I used to argue with her when she would tell me that one of my pictures that I really liked was no good. Later on I would realize that she was right and I was wrong, the picture wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was. I think everyone needs someone in their life who can discern good from bad and is willing to speak the truth about it. I’m extremely fortunate to be married to that person.

The conclusion to this rambling is that everyone needs to become better curators of their own photographs. There are so many pictures that bombard us daily, and most of them are ignored because they’re not great. The world doesn’t need more pictures, it needs more great pictures. Quality instead of quantity. Show fewer pictures, but show better pictures. That’s a goal I have for this new year.

The Value of Prints & Quick Turnarounds

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Ritchie Roesch

Schwabacher Landing Beaver Dam – Grand Teton NP, WY – Fujifilm X-E1

More photographs were captured in 2017 than any year before. This has been the trend since photography began, and it will continue into the coming decades. More people are taking more pictures, especially since the inventions of digital photography and the cellphone camera. However, even though many more exposures are made today, fewer photographs are being printed. Digital photographs almost always are seen through a digital display. Most often they are viewed on small cellphone screens.

The problem with how we now view pictures is that they are quickly in and out of our minds. We see them for just a moment and then they’re quickly forgotten, rarely viewed again. Digital pictures are easily disposable. There’s nothing permanent or lasting about them. They are a dime-a-dozen, or, more accurately, a penny-a-gross. You are bombarded with digital imagery each day, and you barely pay attention anymore.

A physical print has more value because it is more permanent. You’ll look at it longer and more frequently. It gets hung on a wall, displayed proudly. It’s real and it’s rare. Maybe less people will see it, but those who do see it will admire it.

One thing that I did this year for Christmas gifts for family members was print photographs. I did not do this for everyone, of course, but for those who I thought might most appreciate it. I made canvas prints of places like the Grand Tetons and the central California coast. They’re beautiful photographs that I captured over the last couple of years, and they look especially nice printed large. These gifts were well received, with lots of excitement and gratitude by the recipients.

Ready To Party Like A Mother-In-Law – Sun City, AZ – Fujifilm X100F

I traveled to Arizona for Christmas to visit family and friends, including my mother-in-law and her three sisters. I was able to take some quick portraits of them on Christmas Eve. Because the camera I used, a Fujifilm X100F, takes great-looking camera-made JPEGs, I was able to have 10 of the exposures printed that same day. I didn’t need or use a computer or any editing software. I uploaded the images straight from my camera to my phone and then uploaded them from my phone to the lab through their website. About thirty minutes later they were ready. It was very quick and easy.

Target was open late on Christmas Eve, so I was able to purchase some picture frames. The prints looked quite nice framed, and at about midnight I had the gifts all finished. The next morning, Christmas Day, I was able to give my mother-in-law and her sisters their portraits printed and framed. They loved them! It was a highlight of the season for them, and they couldn’t stop talking about it.

It’s not the first time the quick turnaround of the X100F came in handy. I was hired a few months ago and the client needed the photographs immediately. I was paid a high premium for this service, double what I would otherwise charge (I was offered the amount by the client at the outset). As soon as I was done capturing the pictures, I connected my camera to the client’s laptop via a USB cable and transferred the straight-out-of-camera JPEGs, no post-processing done or needed. I got paid double to do half the work, and I thought that this is how all photography jobs should be. He contacted me twice afterwords to tell me just how happy he was with the photographs.

Time is money, as they say. Or, at least, your time and my time are valuable. I dislike spending hours and hours at a computer manipulating photographs. I appreciate all the hours Fujifilm has saved me by making cameras that produce great results without the need to fuss. I’m able to use my time for other, more important things.