Jim Mathis Photography

Citroen DS-21 When I was in college, one of the professors had a French car called a Citroen DS. It was bright yellow and very distinctive looking. I became fascinated by the Citroen and found out that it was an extremely innovative car.  When it came out in 1955 it was years ahead of other makes in handling, braking, and styling. It was one of the few front-wheel drive luxury cars of the era. I test drove one at a Wichita dealer in 1970, but decided not to buy it simple because I needed a pickup more than a French luxury car. For about the same money I got a new Ford F-100. The DS series remained in production until 1975. It came in second in a vote among auto journalist as the most beautiful car of the 20 th century. When Louise and I visited Paris in 1983, the city was fogged in for the entire week we were there. We never saw the top of the Eifel tower, but we looked everyday just in case the weather cleared for minute and we could get a glimpse of the to...

Castel Enchante It was late afternoon when we drove into Nice. We still had plenty of time to find our hotel and go out for dinner. The directions we had turned out to be less than reliable as we drove around looking for something that sounded familiar. We were also confounded by the lack of street signs. Very few streets in Nice are marked, and when they are the system seems pretty random. We eventually stumbled across a sign that was on our map and by combining our wits we were reasonably convinced that we had found the street leading to our inn. The web-site said the small inn was close-in with great views of the city, so we knew we were looking for a hill. As the winding road started to climb our confidence soared. By now it was dark and we were all past hungry. But very soon the road narrowed to one lane and began to deteriorate. There was no place to turn around because the mountain was on one side a sheer drop was on the other. As the road got steeper I realized th...

When I was in college I bought a couple of old Leicas just for fun. One was from the 1930’s and the other was post-war. Not what you would call modern cameras. I started working for Kenny Young at Ben’s Camera Exchange in downtown Kansas City in 1971. Kenny was an avid camera collector and I got quite serious about learning about old camera and the history associated with them. I began by reading all the books I could find about the history of photography and cameras. I heard about a book called “Glass, Brass & Chrome, a History of American 35mm Cameras.” I mentioned it to a customer who worked at the Kansas City Library. The next day he brought me a copy of the book. When I asked him when it was due, he said not to worry about. I read the book and put it on my bookshelf. Years later, after I became a Christian, I saw the book and realized that it was stolen from the library. I took it back downtown and dropped it in the book return. I then tracked down another copy o...

Oldsmobile Toronado I have always loved cars. Not just for the freedom of movement and the ability to go wherever I want whenever I want, but for their beauty and engineering. However, whenever it came time to buy a new car, practicality always won out. In fifty years I have owned thirty-five cars, but none were really outrageous like a Corvette or a Porsche.   In the late seventies, I decided that I needed to buy a car just for fun, so we went to the Kruse Classic Car Auction and came home with a low mileage 1970 Oldsmobile Toronado. The Toronado came out in 1966 and was an engineering tour de force. It was a huge high-powered front-drive two-door luxury car. Later the Mercedes Benz chief said that Mercedes did not make front- drive cars because front-wheel drive would not hold up with high output engines. By this point GM had already sold 500,000 400 hp front-wheel drive Toronados and Cadillac Eldorados without a single drive train failure. I guess the Daimler ...

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 ...