digital

Art  /  Experimental  /  Photography
Experimental Series: Bad Frames
March 1, 2020

This has been a hell of a week. I’ve spent more time talking with doctors and having blood drawn than I have in the past 20 years combined. To say I’m not having fun with this would be an understatement. We’re still waiting on final results but the prognosis is looking something less than peachy. That pattern looks to continue over the next two weeks as well, so I’m not going to be overly aggressive about shooting new material.

Also coloring this week has been a sad fact of life for two of my boys: they’ve each lost a co-worker to suicide. This is never easy no matter how many times it happens. Whether we particularly like our co-workers or not, we spend too much time with them to not be emotionally affected when something of this magnitude happens. I’ve been fortunate in recent years to not have to endure this but for my youngest son this was the first time and it hit him particularly hard. As a parent, I wish I could protect them from this pain, but that is part of our reality.

So, when considering what to process this week, I dropped back, again, to 2012 and picked up a set of photos shots in low light. Looking through the originals, I noticed that there were a lot of bad frames, images that were not positioned within the camera’s range in a manner that would normally be considered attractive. On their own, these bad frames are not useable. Together, though, with the right processing, they become interesting works of art.

There are only nine this week because there simply wasn’t enough time. Life is crazy. Life is fleeting. Sometimes, we need to realize the value in our less-than-positive moments. They’re still part of our lives and are important pieces in what makes our lives beautiful.

[tg_masonry_gallery gallery_id=”16749″ layout=”wide” columns=”3″]

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Fashion  /  Photography  /  PotD
Film Returns To Fashion
May 27, 2016
charles i. letbetter - film returns to fashion

What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. —Aaron Siskind

 

charles i. letbetter - film returns to fashion

While camera makers talk about breaking the 100-megapixel threshold, fashion editors are turning to film for their editorials

Film photography is wonderful, and in many ways, I still prefer it to digital. There is an artistry to using a film camera that is lost with a digital box that does most the thinking for you. Clients have to trust their photographer more, a lot more, and the photographer’s own talent and skill set actually matter. Working with film requires a bit more imagination, a bit more creativity, and a lot more precision. I love it.

So, you’d think that when Business of Fashion publishes an article headlined, “Fashion Photographers Return To Film,” I would be thrilled, right? Get out the old analog cameras, drop some Kodak TMax in the back, and let’s get rolling, right?

Hold on, not so fast. There are some issues here before we all dump our digitals. As enticing as the article makes film photography sound, and it does do such a good job of highlighting the positive aspects of using film, We have to consider whether this trend is sustainable and, beyond that, whether or not it even makes good sense. Let’s take a look at the issues the article doesn’t mention.

  1. The article highlights the work of four very talented but nonetheless young photographers. This looks like fashion photography’s hipster movement and, like everything else hipster, just because the elements are “retro,” doesn’t mean we “old folks,” you know, the ones with all the experience in film are invited to participate. Nevermind that we begrudgingly made the switch to digital some twelve or so years ago. This is a youth-focused retro moment and just because we old guys can do film better doesn’t mean anyone is going to pay attention.
  2. The retro styling of film photography matches the retro movement within the fashion industry itself. Void of any serious creativity for the past several seasons, fashion has gotten stuck looking back, especially at the late 1960s and 70s stylings. The film look works for those fashion lines because it matches the clothing lines. Should fashion ever decide to snap itself out of this ridiculous trend and actually do something creative, that film look isn’t likely to be as appropriate.
  3. The support system is no longer present. When photographers made the switch to digital, and we all did it pretty much within the span of three to five years, we killed off a lot of people’s jobs. Prepress shops are virtually extinct now. There are still a handful of color houses running around the country, but the dramatic decrease in volume has forced them to severely increase their prices. No one even makes black-and-white paper anymore and the film options themselves have severely diminished. 20 years ago, AGFA and Kodak were invested heavily in imagesetters, but neither company even sells those behemoths now (though you can still pick up used devices if you’re really desperate). While I suppose that support system could be revitalized if everyone started using film again, there’s no indication that’s about to happen.
  4. Even if one shoots on film, magazine layout is still digital. Again, the extinction of prepress shops is critical here. Everyone uses digital layout methods now and going back to analog just to accommodate a photography style doesn’t make sense. That means, even if the image is shot on film, it still has to be scanned and digitized and is likely to be photoshopped. That means the images being used are no more “pure” than those shot with a Canon EOS 5D. Bodies can still be reshaped, colors can still be manipulated, errors can still be fixed. So, what’s the point in using film, again?
  5. The photography industry, as a whole, no longer supports film for general professional use. Canon has been showing off a 120-megapixel prototype that could, allegedly, be on the market later this year. Hasselblad’s H6d also offers a 100-megapixel option in full-frame medium format. Meanwhile, Sony continues pushing mirrorless options that grow increasingly sharper with each new update. Even the quality of cell phone cameras is growing rapidly. The photography industry is done with film and has moved on. I don’t see it backtracking. Ever.

I gotta admit, though, the lure of going back to film sure as hell sounds enticing, doesn’t it? To hear that click/whir of an auto film advance, the ability to get really creative and do multiple exposures on camera, trading backs from polaroid to TMax, and just the way a good, solid film box feels in your hand are all pieces of photographic nostalgia that I sometimes miss.

But without prepress and color shops, we’d all have to do our own processing. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t have room to safely set up a dark room anymore. Even if I did, do I really want those highly-flammable chemicals in my house? Yeah, I know we didn’t give it a second thought 30 years ago, but once we  came out from under the influence of those fumes we started seeing just how dangerous an improperly ventilated dark room could be. Then, there are the costs. Products more difficult to find, there aren’t as many options, paper is horribly expensive, and you still have to pay for a high-end drum scan to have the image digitized at sufficient quality. My estimates are a final price tag of about $150 per 8″x10″ image! I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s well outside my budget!

I love the idea of using film for fashion shoots; it certainly fits a number of different styles currently on the market. I fear it’s little more than a pseudo-hipster, anti-establishment, anti-capitalistic trend, though, and like all trends, this will pass. The world is digital now. The world relies on digital imagery and the information a picture can carry in its data packets. As much as we love film, we’re not going back.

Sob.

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Advertising  /  pop culture  /  PotD
Hardcover No Longer Undercover
May 17, 2016
charles i. letbetter - hardcover no longer undercover

Getting 10,000 listeners for a free podcast novel is a lot easier than selling 10,000 hardcover novels at $25 a pop. —Jeremy Robinson

 

charles i. letbetter - hardcover no long undercover

Everyone was so sure that hardcover books were all but extinct. They were wrong.

My favorite people all read. A lot. The smartest people you’ll find are avid readers. The richest people in the world always have a book handy. People who don’t read regularly don’t just bother me, I find them quite frightening. Interestingly enough, I have found that those who have no hardcover books on their shelves seem to have the hardest heads, least likely to be open to information, creativity, or anything new.

For the past several years now, we’ve been told that hardcover book publishing is all but dead. Sales numbers supported that claim. E-readers were everywhere for a while, and it wasn’t all that unusual to see them on the bus, or the train, or at the local coffee shop, typically in the hands of someone young, hip looking, and wearing earbuds to avoid conversation or interruption. Going digital seemed like the environmentally friendly thing to do, too; more books could be published without killing thousands of trees. Going digital also meant one could carry multiple books with them without suffering the weight of an overcrowded bookbag. The whole premise sounded good, and to some degree still does.

What any avid reader will tell you, though, is that while digital publishing does have its advantages, there’s still nothing like the feel and pleasure of holding a real, hardcover book in your hands. We’ve always known that. We might give e-readers a try, and there are moments when they can be quite convenient, but we always come back to hardcover books because holding that physical tome of paper and ink is almost as much a part of the reading experience as is the story enclosed in the book’s pages.

Now, here’s the surprise: Hardcover books are coming back, both in terms of what is fashionable as well as hard sales numbers. The numbers are not huge, yet, according to Publisher’s Association; some $50 million or so out of a $7 billion-plus market. At the same time, though, digital publishing took a similarly-sized downturn. Put the two together and one has to optimistically consider this a trend.

Oh, and on top of that, the British bookseller Waterstones stopped selling e-readers, converted the shelf space to hardcover titles, and saw a five percent increase in sales! Considering the complete demise of Borders books, and how other booksellers have struggled, one has to wonder if perhaps those in charge of such operations might have given up a bit too quickly, tossing in the towel without putting up a sufficient battle.

What has pushed the trend back toward ink-on-paper books? Some point to an increased popularity in lifestyle titles such as Andrew Weil’s Spontaneous Happiness and Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. The popularity of coloring books among young adults hasn’t hurt sales, either, though that hardly counts as a literary genre. Ultimately, what has brought us back to the hardcover is emotion and practicality. We love our books. We love how they feel in our hands. We love turning down pages. We love decorative bookmarks. We love that ability to make sure everyone sees the dust jacket so they know what we’re reading.

We’re also more keenly aware of the shortcomings of e-readers. The portability is great for the first couple of hours, but battery life is limited and no one likes to be tethered to a wall outlet while they read. Environment is a problem, too. Too much or too little sunlight and you can’t see the screen, and the quickest way to ruin an e-reader is to take it into the kitchen while you’re cooking. Drop your Kindle? Sorry, you’ll have to buy a new one. Set the reader too close to anything magnetized and you lose your entire library.

Books are back. We’re not really surprised, are we? While this does not necessarily mean brick-and-mortar bookstores will return in the fashion we once knew, we can be certain that hardcover books are not going to disappear anytime soon. Probably never. Real readers know this. We love our books.

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pop culture  /  PotD
Efficiency Is The New Pickup Line
April 9, 2016
charles i. letbetter - efficiency is the new ickup line

Secrecy is the enemy of efficiency, but don’t let anyone know it. —Ric Ocasek

charles i. letbetter - efficiency is the new pickup line

Millennials are having sex sooner and more often than previous generations, all due to efficiency

File this one under “reasons I’m glad I’m not dating anymore.” For anyone of my generation, or even the generation just younger than me, the manner and means in which Millennials and Gen-Zers are dating and “hooking up” is so dramatically different from the tactics and standards we used as to seem incredibly odd and unnatural. What they’re doing, though, is using available technology to maximize the efficiency of the one night stand.

There are a couple of articles you’ll want to read in order to truly understand what’s going on here. The first appeared in Vanity Fair last September, Writer Nancy Jo Sales looked at what she considers to be the “end of dating” largely because of mobile apps such as Tinder that make “hooking up” much easier than actually going out somewhere and meeting someone. The second was published yesterday on Mashable. Author Mandy Stadtmiller extends from the platform of the VF article to explore exactly how quickly those hookups happen, often without even having met each other. The common tie between the articles is the need for efficiency.

If we need to get real about young adults having sex, let’s do that now: They always have. Let’s not pretend that there was a generation somewhere back in the 50s where everyone remained virginal until they walked down the aisle to get married. The statistics have remained fairly steady since they were first studied over 70 years ago. Young adults like having sex and there’s not much that can stop them. Through every post-WWII generation, 60-65% of all 18-25-year-olds had sex at least once while dating. Don’t let your grandmother’s tales of chastity fool you.

For my generation, there was an unspoken three-date rule for having sex, and that rule has held as the standard for quite a while. Three dates give one time to get to know another person and decide whether there’s even a remote chance of a longer-term relationship. Of course, that’s assuming that there’s actually meaningful dialogue during the dates, which doesn’t always happen. I’m sure we all know someone who just endured the dates to get to the sex. Maybe it was you. Let’s not be naive. Young adult passions haven’t changed.

Dating apps, however, have suddenly shortened the time frame. Whereas we used to make fun of and joke about online dating, apps such as Tinder and Hinge have become so commonplace and easy to use that the stigma of online dating is completely gone. Instead, millennials see it as a way to cut through the clutter without having to endure the horrendous dates. Rather, couples who match on an app begin texting each other, which quickly becomes sexting, which quickly leads to sex. Fast. Efficient. Easy.

Efficiency isn’t the only factor at work here. Underlying the need for efficiency is an attitude of immediate gratification. Millennials are that generation, after all, who want everything now: the nice car, the big house, the exotic vacations, the designer clothes. Waiting for anything isn’t a part of their nature so we shouldn’t be surprised at all that they would want their sex without waiting as well.

We should also note that these hookups are in no way intended to take the place of long-term relationships. Millennials put those longer, more meaningful relationships in a different category than the quick sex hookups from Tinder. The longer relationship is something they’re willing to put in the future, after age 25, or even after the age of 30. The one thing millennials don’t want right now is to settle down.

What they do want, however, is efficiency in their sexual liaisons. I was rather taken aback by some of the forwardness mentioned in the two articles. Conversations went from, “Hi, you’re cute,” to “Send me a dick pic,” in fewer than five exchanges. Addresses and phone numbers were exchanged in less than 10. Chats were almost immediately sexual with seemingly no concern about personality or personal interests or any of the other things that typically draw two people together. Had I attempted such a conversation when I was of that age I would have most certainly had my face slapped. Efficiency matters now, though, and no one seems inclined to wait until the other person asks where they work before hopping into bed with them.

Which brings us back to the problem of people my age who find themselves single, again, perhaps for the third or fourth time. The rules have not only changed, the very mechanics have changed. Trolling for a one-night-stand at a nightclub is passé. See a pretty girl or attractive guy at a bar, chances are they’re looking at their phone, and chances are they’re going through Tinder. They’re not interested in the people around them because that’s not efficient. Older singles who don’t understand that significant shift in attitudes find themselves using the wrong tactics in an attempt to attract people who are too distracted to bother noticing. No wonder older singles end up depressed, lonely, and often suicidal.

This is a very different generation of young people from those who have gone before. Technology has made their lives more efficient. They order fast food before they get to Taco Bell. They expect their Uber to be waiting when they walk out the door. They have a lot going on and efficiency is the key to making it all happen right now. There’s no time for subtleties. Either your DTF or they’re moving on.

And if you don’t understand what DTF means, you’re not even in the game. Don’t bother.

 

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Advertising  /  Fashion
Fashion + Advertising = Porn
January 13, 2016
charles i. letbetter - fashion, advertising, porn

What we see in advertisements is just selling fake dreams, fake things, this impossible beauty. I think we have to be honest. Yeah, this is an ad, we’re selling shoes. But it’s in an interesting way, and people smile.– Nicola Formichetti, creative director, Diesel

 

charles i. letbetter - fashion advertising porn

Can people not wearing clothes actually sell clothes?

Diesel‘s creative director, Nicola Formichetti, has had a peek at your browser history. He knows where you really spend your time, and now he’s going to make sure you’re seeing ads for his clothing while you’re there.

Of course, the majority of people who are regular visitors to the sites Formichetti is targeting, Tinder, Grindr, PornHub, and YouTube, actively deny that they have ever been there. Yet, somehow, PornHub is the 66th most visited website in the world. People on Tinder swipe left or right 1.4 billion times a day. Grindr has 7 million users. Clearly, someone is visiting these websites and they’re visiting them often. But, even with the high traffic numbers, does it make sense to sell underwear next to ads for penis enlargement scams?

“We’re a sexy brand. To support the launch of our underwear line, we’re going to be the first brand to ever advertise on Grindr and we’re the first fashion brand to be working with Pornhub, too. The message is simple: before you jerk off look at this,” Formichetti says with a wink. I don’t think I want to know how hands on Formichetti was with this research. Is the natural marriage of fashion and advertising really porn?

Okay, before we get too terribly upset and all the prudes on the planet swear they’ll never buy Diesel, let’s do a reality check. Number one, if you are truly offended, chances are pretty good you aren’t a Diesel customer anyway. “We’re not scared of these places, we’re not high fashion. We are street,” Formichetti says, and he’s right. Diesel sells denim, not silk.

Second, only one set of underwear ads is going to run on the aforementioned websites. The remainder of the campaign can be seen in all the typical places. Formichetti is very much aware of what’s going on in the digital world, though, and is very comfortable using it to the brand’s advantage. If he sees a website capturing an obscene number of viewers, chances are he’s going to put an ad there.

Third, he’s neither the first nor the only designer to make a connection between fashion and adult material. Remember the pole dancers at Alexander Wang‘s show last season? And just recently, JW Anderson, not typically considered the sexiest brand on the planet, streamed its menswear show on Grindr to the largest online audience the brand has ever seen. Fashion is taking a very sexy turn that may well challenge Tom Ford’s Gucci ads for raw sex appeal. Fashion ads have long been criticized by more conservative segments of society as being porn, so why not embrace it?

Luxury brands have struggled this past year and there’s not a brand in the industry that hasn’t considered what it might have to do to turn sales around. Some are switching creative directors. Others are swapping ad agencies. Still others are employing runway gimmicks and media tie-ins to garner attention. That Formichetti would follow the digital trail to adult-oriented websites fits with the “try anything” attitude currently dogging designers.

Once again, Formichetti tries to explain his reasoning. “I want to portray the world we live in today, and the people in it – so it’s very important that we have different genders, body types, colours, that’s our norm. And then we all live through the phone and the computer, so I wanted to be honest about that.”

Be sure, every other designer is gong to be watching to see whether the porn approach works. If it does, we may just see clothing ads next to naked people on a more regular basis.

charles i. letbetter - fashion, advertising, porn

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studio nudes
The Missing Pinups
August 19, 2015

charles i. letbetter - the missing pinup

The Missing Pinup (2009)

The great seductresses in history knew that it isn’t just about trying to look sexy or pretty; it’s an art and one becomes skillful in it when she realizes that there are all these conflicting elements that all come together to make something magical.  —Dita Von Teese

I like pleasant surprises, even when they’re rather embarrassing to admit. This set of pictures is one such surprise. As I was going through files last week looking for an image suitable for a particular project, I clicked on a folder with a fairly specific label. I wasn’t expecting much, but as I scrolled down I was totally surprised to find this set of pinups which, even now, I don’t remember shooting. I immediately kicked myself, hard, for not having paid attention to these when they were first shot.

The mistake was simple enough. As often happens, when we schedule a shoot around a specific concept, the prep and makeup takes quite a while but the actual shooting time is so brief as to almost seem insignificant. So, it isn’t terribly unusual for us to tag on another complimentary set or two so that we feel as though all the prep time is justified. That is exactly what happened in this case. The pinups were an add-on, probably last minute, to help justify all the preparation.

Unfortunately, in this particular case, the primary concept was so incredibly time consuming that we were only able to finish a couple of the images. The vast majority of raw photographs remain untouched and completely forgotten. When I see the folder, I think of the primary concept and its challenges, so we’ve gone six years without paying any attention to the final set, or even remembering it was shot.

A lot has happened in the waning years. The model is married and has a significantly different look (still incredibly attractive, mind you) and life. The facility where we shot no longer exists. Support staff has moved on to other ventures. These shots are truly gems snatched from the digital dustbin. I’m actually rather surprised they weren’t accidentally deleted to save space.

So, here they are, all twelve poses, processed and published for the very first time. We hope you enjoy them.

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studio nudes
Beautiful Curves
June 11, 2015

charles i. letbetter

Beautiful Curves

Stigma has long been against anyone whose size and shape is alternative to whatever the current style might be. There have been moments in history where being heavy was a sign of wealth and social class. Then, we have contemporary culture where laws have to be passed to prevent fashion labels from using models who are too thin. Neither extreme is healthy, of course, and while we know that in our heads somehow, somewhere, our actions betray what we actually feel.

I am disturbed by the amount of body shaming that has been increasing across the Internet. Thin shaming, fat shaming, bikini shaming, and every permutation of those has taken hold as though there is some level of morality to the size of one’s body. We get upset if someone dares to challenge our size, but we’re quick to disparage anyone whose body is different from our own.

Where we get off thinking such shameful and judgemental behavior is appropriate is a mystery.  I’ve not yet met the perfect body and please believe me when I say I’ve seen more than my share of them. What matters is not what someone might consider an imperfection but the unique aspects of each body that makes everyone wonderful in their own right. Despite what all the alleged fitness and gurus might try to sell us, most people are perfectly healthy without body shapes that force them to spend unreasonable time in a gym or maintaining incredibly difficult diets.

So, we are happy today to focus on the artistry of a beautiful body. She’s chosen some modifications that make her happy, and it is her happiness that matters more than anything else. She’s happy with who she is. She is beautiful, she is intelligent, and she was incredibly fun to have in the studio.

I know at least one social media site is making a concerted effort to end body shaming of any kind on its pages. I’m hoping that others will follow. In the end, though, shouldn’t we focus on celebrating beauty rather than looking to tear down anyone? Do we really need someone else reminding us of the need to simply be nice? That was a lesson we were supposed to learn in kindergarten.

Enjoy the beauty. The curves are especially wonderful.

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Experimental  /  Published
The Digital Person
June 3, 2015

The following article and photos, both by charles, were originally published in EspritNu, Vol. 1 Issue 1. November 2014, pp. 15-17. Reprinted here with permission.

charles i. letbetter

EspritNu Cover, 11/2014

The honorable Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States John Roberts stated in his opinion for the unanimous court in Riley versus California that cell phones “are now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.”  While most consider the Chief Justice’s statement one of humor, those watching the gradual but certain merge of human and digital worlds found the expression far more serious and perhaps even worrisome.

charles i. letbetter

When Mr. Roberts speaks of “a pervasive and insistent part of daily life,” he is referencing the preponderance of personal and private information that is held in digital form for each individual.  Even if one does not own a cell phone or has never set eye upon the Internet, there still exists a collection of digital information, a catalog or dossier if you will, of details such as birth records, land ownership, marriages, divorces, employment, credit and medical histories, education, and most anything else that might touch public record in any way, shape, or form. As that information is bought and sold, accessed by friend and foe alike, each touch adds to the digital image of who we are. The more one is involved in digital matters, the more comprehensive that picture becomes. For example, I am composing this article from my phone and will proofread from another device, then an editor will have a go at it from yet another device not even in the same city, all without exchanging any form of physical media at all.  Everything is digital. Therefore, as this article becomes part of my personal catalog, it contributes to the digital definition of who I am.

Eventually, one comes to the question of whether the collection of digital personal data might create sufficient sentience as to replace this carbon-based structure by which I am currently identified? Might machine replace human?

charles i. letbetter

Here, matters become interesting, controversial, and even a bit frightening. Concepts of various forms of artificial intelligence have existed in ancient mythologies almost as long as we’ve been telling stories. Some tales credit deity, others credit demons, but it’s not until the 20th century that Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) gives them the name that we’ve come to meet with uncertain anxiety. Robots existed in one of the first movies Metropolis, and H. G. Wells wove them into tales of science fiction that still stimulate our fears and fantasies.

charles i. letbetter

For some, such as Google’s Ray Kurzweil, the inevitable amalgamation of digital with biological is wonderful as it opens doors to greater opportunities and discoveries. Others, such as Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, fear ultra-intelligent beings would find us carbon-based life forms slow, flawed, and useless. Philosopher Nick Bostrom makes a rather stimulating argument that we are already puppets of some universal “Matrix” device and that we’ve no concept of true reality. Plenty of scientists and philosophers disagree strongly with all these opinions.

charles i. letbetter

Argue though we may, our lives unquestionably grow more digital with each passing day. There is no returning to a purely analog existence. Some slight digital component exists for every human on the planet. We may either embrace our digital persons or run from them, but we cannot hide; they already know where we live.

charles i. letbetter

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