Jim Mathis Photography

A portrait client said something funny to me a few weeks ago. She said that she was surprised that there were still professional photographers around since we now have digital. I am still trying to figure out what assumptions she had that would cause her to say that. After all, professionals were the first to adopt digital photography in the mid-nineties. Would she suggest that since there are now Walgreen’s on every corner we don’t need doctors, or that there is no need for architects or contractors now that we have Home Depot and Lowes? I think she was assuming that photography is mainly a technical pursuit and that a photographer is mainly a technician. If that were true the biggest challenge to professional photography would have been the original Kodak and roll film introduced in 1888. The Kodak ushered in the idea of the casual snap-shooter and also the photo-finishing industry. All of a sudden, anybody could make photographs. But it also was the beginning of a ne

When I worked in a camera store many years ago, we were encouraged to try out all of the new cameras, lenses, and films, that came into the store. I quickly fell in love with wide-angle lenses. The wider the better. Wide-angle is the opposite of telephoto. It is any lens that gives a field of view wider than about 45 degrees. In the 80's & '90's it practically became an obsession with me as I bought a number of specialty cameras with names like Plaubel Veriwide and Widelux. I still love wide-angle lenses. One of the main reasons to buy a camera with interchangeable lenses is to be able to use some of the marvelous wide-angle lenses that are available. Alternately, multiple pictures can be spliced together to form an extreme wide view. The above photo of the interior of Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is made from three images merged together forming a view of about 180 degrees. Most people discourage using wide-a

I bought a truck load of old photography magazines a few weeks ago. Being a bit of a history buff and especially the history of technology, I have been enjoying reading the articles from the time that digital photography was being introduced through the transition from film to digital. The month I put all of my 35mm Canon equipment on eBay, because digital had finally passed film in quality, the cover story in Popular Photography was “89 Color Films Compared.” Amazing. The tipping point was a pro-quality 5-meg camera with a lens developed especially for digital, priced under $2000. That was in 2001. One of the basic truths of technology is that the first generation of a new technology is never as good as the well-developed old technology. The only exception I can think of is LPs to CDs. The first CDs were as good as the best LPs of the previous generation. Not better, but just as good. The first automobile fuel injection systems were so bad that GM (after doing the initial development

Last week was a sad one for those of us in the photography industry. The company once known as the "Yellow Father" filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Chapter 11 does not mean that the Eastman Kodak Company is out of business, but if and when it emerges from Chapter 11, it will be a much different and smaller company that it was before. When I teach the history of photography, I break photography down into three eras - before Kodak, the Kodak reign, and after Kodak. The twentieth century was the era of roll film and it was dominated by one large company. I can think of no other industry that was so dominated by one company for so long. Many of us in the photography business looked upon Eastman Kodak as the benevolent grandfather who could do no wrong. Unfortunately most grandfathers eventually lose touch with the times and need somebody to just make them comfortable in their last days and EK seems to be at that stage. George Eastman was a visionary who invented