innovation playground Idris Mootee

What Business Strategy And Photography Have In Common? It Is All About The Decisive Moment.

Marketing of any innovative technologies always encounter one big problem, they are being compared with an older generation of technology and although usually do better in many fronts such as performance and features but there are always those who wonder if the analog quality is better than digital. The argument for analog music versus digital has been going on for more than 20 years and now we’re finally coming to a point where people accepted that digital is equal to if not better from a naturalness and purity of sound perspectives.

The same thing for cameras has been going on for a long time. There are diehard fans that rightfully believe that digital quality still has a way to go. The claim that digital capture vastly surpasses the performance of silver halide material has a strong psychological basis that are not based on facts. The same case for those who loves vinyl records. I was only convinced recently that digital audio has reached a point where they don’t sound digital anymore.

For photography, I think we are seeing that happening now. I’ve seen a lot tests that with high end digital cameras such as a Leica M9 can now favorably be compared with the best ISO 100 emulsions and can hold this quality even up to the ISO400. (The photo above was part of a gallery exhibition of photos, taken at St. Germain, Paris 1988 with my M4-2)

I have yet to test my Lecia X1 which I picked up just last Thursday and see how far it compares to my old M4s. The unboxing experience was a big delight, even better than the iPad or iMac unboxing. The X1 is pretty camera with a good size and the best part is the manual function which works and feels like a film camera. Both aperture and shutter speed can be manually selected in a simple way on the deck and no need to go into navigating through different screens. The X1 has a 12.2-megapixel full size CMOS image sensor and an Elmarit f/2.8 lenses. The 24mm lens equate to 35mm which is great for photojournalism. And unlike the Leica M9 which can only manual focus, the X1 provides auto focus (contrast detect based) and can be live-view through a 2.7-inch LCD screen. The design is elegant. Makes you think why other cameras are so poorly designed with a few exception.

One exception is the Holga. The other end of the spectrum…the cheapest end. Remember the plastic cheap cameras in the 70s. It is really a camera more than a toy. Someone is resigning it and the digital version retains the qualities and simplicity of the original Holga camera and brings back the joy and delayed gratification associated with good old analog photography.

For those people who have no idea what a Holga is, it is an inexpensive, medium format 120mm film toy camera (yes toy), known for its surrealistic effect as a result of poor quality optics and design. 

It has a low-cost construction and simple meniscus plastic and that creates vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other 'qualities' that's unacceptable a traditional sense. But the quality problems have attracted a cult as a creative style. The best part is there is no feature. Yes no feature. I hope there are products in other category that offers no feature. No feature is one big innovation opportunity that everyone misses. Just remember you first hear about that here.

On another note, I missed the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition in MOMA, I was in NYC almost every week but couldn’t even find an hour to see that. Henri Cartier-Bresson is one of the most original, influential, and beloved master of photography (yes, he used Leicas ony). His work of the early 1930s helped define the creative potential of modern photography, and his uncanny ability to capture life on the run made his work synonymous with “the decisive moment”. The beauty about photography … it is like business, you’re always waiting for that “decisive moment”, the rest of the time is just wait and wait. And when it comes, you have only one shot. So you gotta be prepared for that moment.

Have your Leica ready! And happy July 4th!

The Demoncratization Of The Art Of Film Making Is In The Making.

Is film making more art or more design? I guess it depends of what kind of film we are talking about. The same can be asked about furniture, fashion, product and architecture. When we talked about design in filmmaking people are quick to jump to sets, props and wardrobe. But what about the design of the film?

Filmmaking has gone from abstract to more realistic and now ultra realistic HD 3D. The first film that fully utilized modified stage effects was the German expressionism film Cabinet of Dr. Caligary (1919), created by Hermann Warm, Walter Rohrig, and Walter Reimann.  Expressionism often designed with a three-dimensional look of obvious theater borrowed wooden props by using distorted forced perspective. It is definitely more art than a film. You can disagree with me by saying they are one of the same thing. Joe Maeda has a very good definition about the two.

Early European style film design usually included an imaginary, highly constructed mood setting. It was the imagination of nature, construction of life, stylization of the truth, and an re-reinvention of everyday reality. I think filmmaking is about to be revolutionarized like the early days of filmmaking.

Today the tools are different, the languages are changing and we are dealing with a generation of very different filmmakers and audiences. Can 3D save the cinemas? May be. Will accessibility of affordable equipment powered up a generation of filmmakers? Probably yes. Using emerging technologies to prototype very different kinds of film. What does it mean by social filmmaking? Just as Adobe and Macintosh democratized graphic design, will film be next? 

DSLRs have become something known as 'combocams' with the ability to shoot both pictures and videos has blurred the lines between photography and videography. We will see the coming of the 'transformercams", bascially a modular open system that allows you assemble the right equipment for any job.

Not that these DSLRs are comparable to an Arriflex or Red, but they are inexpensive enough and the quality is pretty good. Equipment and the ability to operate these equipment used to be a barrier for still people to switch to film. You don’t easily get your hands on an Arriflex 35C to play with it. But today, you can experiment with your DSLRs and teach yourself to be a videographer. There is a common point of view that photography and videography are two very different art forms although they share many basic fundamental principles. The way a videographer moves, handles his equipment, exposes his subjects are quite different from how a photographer would handle the same situation. In a few years, people won’t talk about any differences.