Coyote pup sitting beside yellow daisies, Jasper National Park, Canada. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

BBC = bBS

Hey Folks,

Here’s an interesting article from the UK Telegraph; the first paragraph pretty much sums things up: “The BBC is accused of routinely faking footage in wildlife documentaries, by using studio sets, sound effects and tame animals to portray creatures in the wild.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking: yes, indeed, the UK Telegraph commenting on any media source of ‘faking’ anything is pretty sad. Let’s disregard tabloid integrity for a moment and consider what this is really about (and what’s WAY more fun); wildlife photography.

Wildlife photography does not include zoo and game farm animals; shooting captive subjects, given that some folks are perpetually going to choose to do this, should always be labelled as such, even if only via context (see Darwin Wiggett’s bear photo for an example; and notice that he captioned it regardless).

I have yet to hear anyone explain how photographing a bear in a cage is wildlife anything. The root of the word ‘wild’ is free-willed, not Free Willy. I understand, for certain, there are degrees of what that might mean. Is a zebra migrating hundreds of miles across the plains in Africa before being hemmed in by a fence really free willed? *

The fact that there are indeed myriad shades of gray, woven through every possible facet of our world, does not make charcoal black any less black. We might differ on where 18% gray is, but we know what black is.

A bear in a cage is a bear in a cage, and not wildlife. Steel bars and free will aren’t friends.

Wildlife photography must be about wild, as people photography must be about people. Photographing captive animals is no more wildlife photography than photographing my pickup truck parked in front of the house might make me a Nascar photographer; a photo of me in my stylishly stunning goretex jacket is not fashion photography.

So what is “wildlife”? In thinking of how critically different a captive animal is to a wild one, I’m reminded of a powerful passage by Derrick Jensen in his great book, Thought to Exist in the Wild, Awakening to the Nightmare of Zoos: “A sea lion is her habitat. She is the school of fish she chases. She is the water. She is the cold wind blowing over the ocean. She is the waves that strike the rocks on which she sleeps and she is the rocks. She is the constant calling back and forth between members of her family, this talking to each other that never seems to stop. She is the shark who eventually ends her life. She is all these things. She is that web. She is the process of being a sea lion, in place. She is her desires, which we can only learn by letting her show us, if she wants; not by encaging her.”

That’s what wild is. A bear in a cage relentlessly pacing back and forth thru its own shit is not.

The power of photography is in its capture. What makes a photo so appealing to a viewer is the moment. Reality portrayed on a 2 dimensional plane. If we look through great moments in all forms of photography and ask the question of what is it that evokes a reaction in a viewer, it’s clearly a response to some perceived sense of reality, to some actual experience; even if that sense is simply someone else’s “take” on reality. We understand that moment. We feel it. We relate to it.

I think it’s important that we don’t deny that power, that integral function of a photograph. Photography might, translated literally, mean ‘painting with light’, but that’s a superfluous definition. Photography is most definitely NOT painting. Photography is photography.

When we present that photography as something other than what it actually is we’re not documentarians. It’s a copout to hide beneath the veneer of “artists” as well; the only use of the term “artist” that might be appropriate for those photographers who don’t disclose captive subjects is “con-artist”.

Speaking of such, even the National Advertising Division recently made a similar statement when they banned an ad by Proctor & Gamble for too much digital manipulation. The NAD took things a step further, however, and pointed out that even a footnote isn’t enough; that is, full disclosure should be FULL disclosure: “You can’t use a photograph to demonstrate how a cosmetic will look after it is applied to a woman’s face and then – in the mice type – have a disclosure that says ‘okay, not really.’

Some folks claim that labeling their photographs reduces nature photography to a form devoid of ulterior meaning, but I disagree. We humans label things. We label animals, features, subjects, moments, days, places, etc. We label each other. We label ourselves. And yes, we label our art. We label sculptures as ‘sculptures’, paintings as ‘paintings’, poetry as ‘poetry’, and so on. We even subdivide each form into further categories, and label pieces and subdivisions accordingly. Photography becomes ‘journalistic photography’, or ‘still life photography’ and ‘nature photography’. This is what we do. Its how we know the world.

IMO, the power of nature photography is its expression of the natural world. Portrayals of captive animals as wild animals loses much of the power that comes through our relationships and experiences with nature. I see no harm in expecting artists and documentarians alike to pronounce their work for what it is. The phrase ‘nature photograph’ carries with it certain intimations. A trip to the zoo is NOT one of those.

Cheers

Carl

* PS: the answer to the question about the zebra is (a), yes.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

the word sale.”

- Edmund Burke Carl Donohue

Ref:

View up Arrigetch Creek toward the Arrigetch Peaks, Xanadu, Ariel and Caliban, from left to right. A popular rock climbing and backpacking destination, the Arrigecth Peaks lie in the heart of Alaska's Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, right near the Continental Divide. Arrigetch Peaks, Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

You perhaps saw this recent story in the news about our ‘drowning in a sea of images’. It’s an interesting view, and, I believe, a very valid point. Any kind of inundation makes staying afloat a difficult task. And sometimes it’s impossible.

A photographer and artist I admire, Chase Jarvis, recently posted a response to this on his blog, about how we’re not drowning, but getting richer with this unabating torrent of images. That’s kind of a weird take on it. What kind of flood can we swim through?

Chase argues “shouldn’t it be said that we’re not drowning in photography at all, that we’re perhaps getting metaphorically rich off more and more of these veins of gold?”

“veins of gold”? Gold has value because it’s rare. And because it’s durable. If gold were produced quite as readily as iphone “pics” seem to be, and had a similar lifespan of any digital file, it wouldn’t cost eighteen hundred dollars an ounce right now. I’d suggest a better chemical analogy might be carbon dioxide. CO2 seems to be pretty prevalent right now, becoming ever more so, and, contrary to what the s(k)eptics tell ya, it’s not enriching our world.

I suspect the ever increasing barrage of images only serves to dilute how we respond to great work. When we DO see an image of value, we no longer know how to savor it. Or why. Images (and content in general) are thrown at us so constantly, we can’t begin to appreciate them. We don’t have time, and we don’t have the interest. We don’t have the capability. Humans are creatures of habit; we’re being conditioned, and ever more strongly today, to quickly move on to what’s next, to discard and proceed, to eat on the run. We don’t know how to sit and relish some tasty tidbit.

We have no idea what we’re missing. I’ll quote Wendell Berry (always good form):

“Nothing is more pleasing or heartening than a plate of nourishing, tasty, beautiful food artfully and lovingly prepated. Anything less is unhealthy as well as a desecration”. – Health Is Membership, from Another Turn of the Crank. (Buy yourself this book. And then buy it for someone else. The first sentence above could be well used, metaphorically, to describe Wendell’s writing)

Chase’s argument, in my opinion, is like arguing that the world of fast food, of sliced Wonder Bread and pre-packaged everything somehow improves our diet over eating home baked bread (which, I can assure you, after my delicious sandwich on wheat today, it does not!) and garden grown veggies. We’re not getting richer on a diet of genetically modified grains; and we’re not getting richer via an endless deluge of pics that we’ll maybe see one time before they’re deleted or lost on some corrupted hard drive. Simply because it’s abundant and easily produced doesn’t mean we’re prospering because of it.

But the real killer, the coup de grâce in the post is this statement: “I prefer to make the argument that the snapshot has become perhaps the most human, the most important photography of our modern era.” (my emph. added)

“our”? His maybe. I’m not sure he and I live in the same universe, nevermind era. This statement is simply wrong on so many levels. “The snapshot is the most human photography of the modern era”? What an absurdly bizarre comment from a great photographer and artist. Is the text message the most human literature of the modern era? A 140 character tweet? Are 30 second advertisements on TV the most important film of the modern era? A junior burger the most human of our culinary efforts? Are

This is not simply incorrect, it’s precisely the kind of thing that contributes to the drowning. We’re also drowning, you see, in a sea of blogs and articles and essays and posts and tweets and shares and retweets and circles and status updates and  texts and … well .. squalor.Everyone’s so keen to make the most noise, and get heard, they’ll write anything, about anything, to ask for attention. Someone writes an article about how noisy the world is? Respond with an article about how rich our ears are. Someone writes an article about how the internet world is too hectic? Respond with an article about slovenly you used to be. Someone writes a great article about anything? You retweet it; you don’t actually READ it, you retweet it. That, imo, is drowning.

Now, if Chase COULD support his point of view with the odd coincidence that this sea of images has coincided with the most expensive price ever paid for a pic. But he didn’t.

What we don’t need is people like Chase adding to the nonsense; he’s usually an astute and insightful guy, and I enjoy his work. A lot. But this kind of post is all of what’s wrong with the internet, the digital age, and precisely what the original column he mentions is in reference to.

Cheers

Carl

PS: The undrowned image above was taken on my trip to the Arrigetch Peaks, in Gates of the Arctic National Park, this past fall. And not with a telephone.

Mount Saint Elias, 18 008' high, stands tall in the evening light over an unnamed glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska - aerial photo. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

Well, just back from 2 weeks to photographing brown bears in Katmai National Park, and I’m off again already; I’ll be gone for some time on this trip, 4 weeks down along the coastline of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, where I will meet up with Erin and Hig, of Ground Truth Trekking. They’re spending 2 months in the area,  finding out

“what would it be like to live on ice? In the fall of 2011 we will set out to spend two months living on the shifting, melting surface of North America’s largest glacier, along with our two young children.

Trekking between a series of camps on the Malaspina Glacier, on Alaska’s remote and harsh Lost Coast, we will explore this dramatic and wild landscape, weather the fall storms, and document climate change in action.”

Pretty cool stuff. You can read more about the expedition on their blog, here. They’ve already been out a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to meeting up, and hearing all about their adventures. From the tweets I’ve seen, they’re having a blast. I spoke with Hig today, and he’s excited about the trip as it’s going so far. So my plan is to join their trip, for a while, and photograph as much as I can of it. As well as explore the magnificent Wrangell – St. Elias National Park coastline, a place I’ve not spent as much time as I’d like to. So, for 4 weeks, I’ll be trudging around, hiking, pack rafting and experiencing the Malaspina Glacier and the “Lost Coast”. I also hope, of course, to get some big views of those mountains, the incredible Saint Elias Range, the world’s highest coastal range, and home of Mount Saint Elias, pictured above.

The trip should be a blast, anytime I can spend 4 solid weeks in the backcountry I’m a happy fella; to do so in such a unique area as this coastline will be truly memorable, I’m sure. Lots to photograph, and lots to learn about in such a relatively rarely visited area. It’ll be awesome to hang with Hig and Erin some more, and learn from their knowledge and experience. Hig has a PhD in geology and Erin a masters in molecular biology, so I’m sure I’ll learn an amazing amount from both of them.

I’ll schedule a few posts for while I’m away, so please do check in from time time. I should be back in on Nov 7, and have plenty to talk about when I arrive. That’s the plan, anyway. But we all know what they say about plans and mice and men.

Cheers

Carl

Winter travel through the boreal forest, in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Hiking on snowshoes through the snow-covered taiga, white spruce forest in winter.

Hey Folks,

I’m going to be putting a trip together for next spring, late March/early April, to do a snowshoe and backcountry cross-country ski trip. We’ll be staying in a cozy, warm cabin, not backpacking with tents, etc; a wood fire makes all the difference!

We’ll be doing day trips out to different parts of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Stay tuned for details coming soon, when this summer winds down and I get a moment to add the trip to the website.

This trip will be a blast, and a great introduction to Alaska’s most awesome season. Drop me a note or add a comment here and I’ll be sure to add you to the list. This trip will be run via my backpacking and trekking business, Alaskan Alpine Treks.

Cheers

Carl

Backpacker hiking in snow near Mt Jarvis, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

I’ve signed up an account with Google Plus, and would like to invite all of you Google Plus users to ad me to your groups and lists there. I’ve only just started my account there, but it looks like a great network. There are some fantastic photographers on there, among some of my favorites; Guy Tal, Ron Niebrugge, Michael Gordon, Gary Crabbe Dan Mitchell, Jim Goldstein and a host of others; some really great images on there, so if you haven’t got an account yet, it might be worth checking it out, if for no other reason than to follow the work of folks like this.

My Google Plus page is here.

Cheers

Carl

PS: Oh, and the photo above really has nothing to do with Google Plus; it’s from a hike I did last fall up to Mt Jarvis, and just happens to be a shot i like a lot. Of me, of course!

Wintertime on the Kuskulana Glacier. Abstract photo of ice patterns and colors on the glacier, Wrangell Mountains, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click on the image to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

It’s interesting to think about how technology and cultural constructs shape what we think and feel. Today we live in a somewhat bizarre world, where digital mediums both record and present way too much of our lives; we can watch Australia’s then Prime Ministerial candidate Kevin Rudd (he went on to win the election) pick something from his ear and eat it during gov’t Question Time, we watch a person rush over and catch a baby falling off an escalator, etc, etc. So much of our lives is recorded and witnessed again, from the mundane to the exciting, the thrilling to the disheartening, our greatest moments and our worst. Whether recorded intentionally or unintentionally, today we see it almost all on the big screen.

In some ways, the power of visual imagery has only increased, it appears, with the inundation of imagery that digital technology has yielded. Some folks might suggest that this flood of images waters down its potency, but it appears to only strengthen with increased volume. The more imagery we’re subjected to, the stronger, apparently, their hold on us.

We see virtually everything, and I wonder if that doesn’t blind us in some ways. Must we see it to believe it? Do our real world lives hinge so completely on recordings for us to understand beauty and grandeur, love or tragedy, death or finality? How about to gain closure?

Has the evolution of an omnipresent recorded-visual imagery so reduced our ability to accept that we can’t trust that which we don’t see? I can’t help but think of how many amazing moments, from the monumental to the incidental, were never recorded on film, were never photographed, yet their stories told and retold over the years, nurtured for decades, for centuries. What’s lost to live in a world where if we must see it to believe it?

Has “Reality TV” so molded our perspective that this is the only window through which we as a culture can  move forward? Is that what we’ve become, that we’ve reduced even the most tragic and compelling moments of our lives to recorded imagery, to photos, to videos, to scripts? Are we THAT addicted to visual imagery that we need it for resolution?

Life isn’t a reality show and nor was what happened Sunday, May 01, 2011. We’re not spectators on the sidelines of the universe; we’re participants of the world. Photos are wonderful things, and they can be an incredibly powerful too for the human mind, but the universe, and that includes our selves, rarely needs a memory card and a LCD monitor to move forward.

Thinking further, I’m not sure this speaks to the power of an image, or power of imagery, as much as a debilitation of our other faculties. We all know that a completely passable ‘image’ can be constructed by even a relatively poorly skilled graphic artist, yet we’re somehow beholden to this idea of an image as documentation. We feel a need to “see it to believe it”, but we also know that seeing it doesn’t make it any more real. Few among us have the discerning eye to spot a good photoshop fake from an authentic photo, and yet we clamor for this pseudo ‘proof’; proof which will still, ultimately, rely on the word of some specialist we in turn seek for advice.

“Is it real?”, would be the immediate response. We all KNOW this, yet still we have some weird kind of autonomic response, demanding visual measurement. I suspect what we’re experiencing is more likely an addiction to entertainment than a real strengthening of the power of an image. The phrase “the power of an image” has, in this sense, more to do with our own yearning to see than any heightened powers of persuasion a specific image might have.

A picture might paint a thousand words, but if those words are merely ‘well, is this real?’ then I’m not so sure that’s a very powerful statement at all, is it?

What a weird world.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Just spreading the word here: You’re all familiar with GoDaddy hosting service. The CEO, Bob Parsons has posted a video of himself on vacation to Zimbabwe, where he, gets this … shoots a bull elephant. The video is presented here.

The guise that this is “saving people’s crops” is simply ridiculous; I suppose next he’ll save by handing out free GoDaddy caps to villagers he not only fed, but clothed, the villagers.

If you host your site with GD, I hope you’ll take steps to move it elsewhere. I certainly would. There’s no way I’d want any of my money going to fund this idiot’s business.

Photographer Jim Goldstein has a blog on this topic, as well; and full props to him for getting the word out there on a subject like this. HIs blog is here.

Cheers

Carl

A coastal brown bear, Ursus arctos, walks along Brooks River shoreline at dawn, backlit, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

Hey Folks

Next up in this series of news of the month pieces.

This month, I haven’t been spending as much time in the woods, and even less reading the news. Mostly, I’ve been grating sandpaper over my eyeballs … more commonly called “working on website updates”. I need to take about a  year off, and learn how to do this properly, then start over from scratch and rebuild everything (yeah, that’s gunna happen).

Below I’ve compiled various bits from around the web that held my failing attention long enough to actually read through the piece.  Feel free to add your own stuff of note, I’d love to see some things I’ve missed.

In a completely random order:

Photography Stuff

Northern Lights Photos I saw this the other day. A nice compilation of photos and a video of the Aurora, both borealis (northern) and australis (southern). Included are shots of the aurora both from space and IN space. Hubble space telescope photos of the aurora on Saturn. That’s a first, for me at least. And definitely check out this video/time lapse Terje Sorgjerd at the bottom of the post. Very cool.

A new blogger (for me, anyway). I wasn’t familiar with fellow Aussie photographer Mitchell Kanashkevich until I read this recent post on the aspirations of a Travel Photographer. Nice discussion, and his site is worth keeping connected to. Google reader time again.

Extreme Sheep LED Art This is simply way, way, way too cool. I mean, awesomely cool. “We took to the hills of Wales armed to the teeth with sheep, LEDs and a camera, to create a huge amazing LED display. Of sorts”. Do yourself a favor and watch this video. Do yourself 2 favors, and watch it again.

What’s wrong with global Photojournalism? Photographer discusses the state of photojournalism today, as presented in the recent “world’s top press photography contest”. A better discussion might be on the point of such contests.

Quote #1: “What the events reveal is the thinness of the margin on which modernity lives.” Bill McKibben, on the tragedy in Japan.

Capture NX2 tutorial I wrote a post a while back about Nikon Capture NX2, and how much I preferred the results to Photoshop’s ACR. Here’s a quick tutorial from Nikon on making some simple adjustments with the program. Things are never as simple as tutorials suggest, but this is helpful.

Composition I’m always in 2 minds about these kinds of articles. In some ways, they’re useful, but in so many other ways, they just seem to regurgitate old rules that don’t need to be regurgitated. Zappa’s “Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar” comes to mind as a response. Still though, it’s nice to read something like this once in every great while.

Fair Use and Photos A Photo Editor’s take on a recent decision in federal court. The case involved a claim of Fair Use, by Richard Prince, Gagosian Gallery, Lawrence Gagosian and Rizzoli International Publications, after photographer Patrick Cariou filed suit for copyright infringement. Prince “appropriated 28 images from Patrick’s Yes Rasta book for his Canal Zone exhibit at the Gagosian gallery”. Good news? Photographer wins.

Odds and Ends

Branding Do you brand? Do you think it’s important? Do you know what it is and how to do it? Do you want to? “Your brand is a promise to the client”. A few tips here on the subject.

WordPress Plugins WordPress is a great, great blogging platform. Virtually every “blogger” I know uses it. A few plugins here might be helpful to improve your photo blogsite. Which reminds me I need to install the Supercache plugin soon.

Artists and Facebook USA Today has a news article titled “Artists draw on Facebook to connect, or sell their work”. I wonder if next week they’ll have a scoop showing that chocolate tastes great. Seriously though, interesting article, looking at how something like the net is a boon for some artists, and a hassle for others.

AWARD WINNERS 2010 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medals were awarded by President Barack Obama. A list of winners is here. I’m jazzed that Sonny Rollins (pun intended) was awarded a medal, and also James Taylor, Quincy Jones, and Wendell Berry. Congrats to all the winners, what a great achievement and recognition.

Quote #2: “The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.” - Frank Barron.

Waste Land A documentary film following photographer Vic Muniz in Brazil. Muniz set out to change the lives of an impoverished group of  self-assigned pickers of recyclable materials. “Creating portraits of the garbage pickers, selling them as high art, and giving all the money back to the community”.

Mount Blackburn at dawn. Winter photo, from Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

That’s it til next month. Please do add anything you really enjoyed. The only qualifiers are that you must have actually read the article/watched the video/browsed the photo/s, AND thought the link actually worthwhile sharing. Put everything else on Twitter.

Thanks folks.

Cheers

Carl

An adult Bald Eagle silhouetted headshot, on perch, Homer, Alaska. (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). This photo was taken with photo equipment, by a photographer. The 2 worked together. The eagle co-operated only briefly. Pesky eagles. Click on the image above to view a larger version of this photo.

Hey Folks,

I read it again last night. This nonsense has to stop. Why do photographers so often have such a hard time simply acknowledging that what we do is inherently technological? As such, technological advances (i.e., new gear) can (and typically do) play an enormous role in the work we produce. Perhaps much more so than most other art forms.

You’ve all seen the kind of commentary I’m talking about; another piece about how painters don’t talk endlessly about their paintbrushes. Or, even more inanely, how if Art Wolfe were to shoot with a P&S camera, he’d still produce a remarkable portfolio. It’s the photographer, not the camera, that produces great work, blah, blah, blay.

Right?

Wrong.

While it’s true that no camera ever went out and took a photograph by itself, it’s also true that no photographer ever went out and took a photograph without a camera, either. Clearly, then, things are not quite as simple as some folks would have us believe.

Photography requires both photographer AND photography equipment. The relative weight of the role of each varies, for sure, but to deny the significance of the equipment in photography, and particularly wildlife photography, is to deny reality.

Even a cursory examination of photography illustrates how valuable the technology is to what we do. Recent advances such as Image Stabilization/Vibration Reduction, Auto-focus and focus tracking, High ISO, etc, etc play a critical role in much of what many of us shoot. It’s always amusing to me to hear Joe Schmoe talk about how secondary the gear is to taking photo, standing there with $20 thousand dollars worth of camera hanging off his shoulders. I’d invite Mr Schmoe the present his portfolio of images taken without any gear sometime.

But let’s look at some of the common arguments heard, such as those presented above.

a) Painters and their brushes. Wrong. Talk to painters sometime. Here’s just one example:

“Make sure you have the best possible brushes you can afford. While it is possible to save money on paint and canvas, one should never work with cheap brushes. In my experience, cheaper brushes are simply not worth it.”

Serious painters often spend years studying not just composition and form, but even paint makeup, etc, of the old masters.

And even though we can see the argument is simply incorrect, what if it weren’t? So what? We’re not painters, we’re photographers. Writers don’t look to dancers for direction, why should photographers mimic painters?

b) Art Wolfe and his P&S camera. Art’s one of my favorite photographers. Amazingly talented and hard-working man. And he knows his gear, wonderfully well. And, he doesn’t use a P&S, but typically is carrying some of the most advanced, technologically involved camera gear available. Here’s just one example from his blog. This post, from 2 years ago, lists his basic kit. The fact that he lists his sponsors liberally across his website supports the idea that his gear is, at least to Art, critical.

Secondly, and more importantly, what highlights how silly this argument is, is that it ignores the most fundamental point about all ‘gear’; one has to know how to use gear, regardless what kinda gear we’re talking about. Hand Mr Wolfe a P&S that he doesn’t know how to use, and I’ll wager he doesn’t produce much worth a damn with it. Hand him one with the camera manual, and he’ll do much better.

3rd point; offering Art Wolfe as an example to make a point is like suggesting we might all become wealthy by running fast, and then pointing to Usain Bolt to support your case. Statistically speaking, those people don’t even exist.

4th point; hand Art Wolfe that same P&S and his current DSLR system for a week, and I’ve little doubt with which system he’ll produce a stronger portfolio.

c) It’s the photographer. Sure, it is indeed. A great photographer produces great photographs. But I don’t know very many at all who don’t use good, or really good, gear. And I know quite a few photographers. And I’ll suggest that regardless of what they might tell their workshop clients, or write in their articles, they use good gear, if not the best they can scratch out, because they know they’ll produce much better results with it.

Gear matters. And I spent a helluva lotta money on it last year, so I damned well better be right.

Cheers

Carl (wishing he had a D3s)