The Minimalist Photographer Review

eBook review by Chuck Hajdu

The Minimalist Photographer

by Steve Johnson

ISBN: 978-1-937538-09-5

www.oreilly.com

It’s not very often that I have the opportunity to review a product of any kind that I find so agreeable. The Minimalist Photographer book proved to one of those agreeable product reviews.

It all started out on the dedication page: For Meg. She was right. My only daughter is a Megan and she is always right.

The eBook is set up well and covers a lot of subject matter in an easy to follow way. I have a fairly technical photographic background and I was interested in seeing how the technical aspects would be covered. My background includes quite a few courses in college on most aspects of technical photography as well as extensive art courses and painting instruction. In addition, I have been a semi-professional photographer for over 30 years and have an extensive background using both film and digital high-end cameras. I guess I would best describe myself as someone who knows enough to know what he doesn’t know.

The Minimalist Photographer stresses repeatedly the philosophy that I have espoused for many years: it’s not equipment that takes great photographs, it’s great photographers. The author stresses over and over the need for each person to find their own vision and I could not agree more.

In the Introduction he captures the essence of his philosophy when he talks about “what now?”  The minimalist needs to look at things from a simplified viewpoint instead of of more convoluted, complex vision. The vision of “what next” replacing “what now” is a perfect example of how to focus your vision.

As I read through each chapter I was surprised with how seldom I disagreed with the author. His concept of what is important and what is unimportant coincided with my own. He goes into sufficient detail on equipment and technical aspects of photography to convince the reader that he knows his subject well.

One of the points that the author makes in the book that I most agree with is his feelings on reviews. When I was in college, about a million years ago, I took several sociology courses. One of the first lessons we were taught was: “consider the source”. That is always crucial when evaluating reviews. ALL reviews, including this one. That is why I gave readers of this review some background on what shaped me.

When you pick up a photography magazine (or a magazine devoted to any subject for that matter) take a look at the ads in the magazine. Are there several pages of expensive ads for a particular company and then, miraculously, rave reviews for their latest product? Hmm. what a coincidence! As I said, consider the source.

The entire book is very well illustrated with photographic examples of each subject being discussed. Many of the photographs are beautiful examples of isolation of subject matter and are shot in monochrome. They clearly define “minimalism” and stress my personal addiction, macro photography.

If there is one piece of lens buying advice I can give it is: buy a great macro lens! I have a Vivitar Series 1 90mm f/2.5 Macro lens in Minolta MC mount that I bought in the mid-1970s that I use to this day. It is an incredible lens that focus down to 1:2 and is very crisp wide open.

One of the chapters that I was looking forward to was Chapter 4: The Camera. I have become a total convert to mirrorless-interchangeable-lens-cameras (MILCs) and I wanted to see how Mr. Johnson handled them. I was not disappointed.

In the chapter he discusses the industry, the purpose of camera reviews, choosing equipment and then the different types of cameras. He covers most of the cameras found today and stresses picking the right camera for you, not just the most expensive camera.

His description of MILCs is priceless: they are the “Holy Grail” of cameras. I could not agree more with his prediction that MILCs will replace dSLRs in the future. In my opinion, and I think Leica, Olympus, Nikon and Sony agree, that is the future. Who knows what Canon and Ricoh/Pentax think?

One of the big advantages of the thin bodied MILCs is their ability to use adapters to allow photographers to use older SLR lenses on modern digital cameras. As I mentioned earlier, I use a Vivitar macro lens in Minolta mount regularly. But I don’t use it on a Minolta camera. I use it on Olympus PEN micro4/3 camera bodies. I am able to continue to get excellent service from a lens that I bought many years ago.

If you want to find real bargains at this point in time then check out macro lenses on eBay. Find a bargain in any lens mount and pick up the appropriate adapter on Amazon.com. I guarantee that you will be able to find a combination that will fit your budget. Of course, I am basing this recommendation on your owning a MILC, but that’s a given.

The author captures the entire book in one line on page 22: “photography is about seeing”. That’s all you really need to know. If you can “see” then you can be a photographer. You just need to learn to see.

Most of us should ever expect to become the next Andre Kertesz, but we can all learn from his photographic philosophy and that of Mr. Johnson and become better Minimalist Photographers.