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When testing cameras, lenses and lighting equipment, I need models who would like to pose for the kind of photographs you see scattered throughout this blog. To accomplish that goal, I’m looking for models for these projects and with my new emphasis on film photography I’m especially interested in finding a new muse.

Most of the photo books that publishers send me to review aren’t that great. The bulk of them are written by Internet-famous photographers with hundreds of thousands followers that the publishers are hoping the influencers will sell the book to so they don’t have to. Along comes two books that defy this trend and are something, along with Jeff Bridges Volume 2, that I can recommend as a holiday gift for friend, loved ones, and maybe just yourself.

Everybody and their cousin’s friend has ideas about the “rules of composition.” Even me. But only one man—William Mortensen—created a system that starts with what looks like three simple rules and then expands each of them into many corollaries and sub-rules that were explained in his 1937 book The Command to Look.

I was sitting in the press room at one of the last film-based photokina shows talking with the legendary Joe Meehan and several other photo magazine editors and he asked each of us, “How many cameras do you own?”

Today’s vlog is a follow-up to my video about Buying Film Cameras from Japan on eBay and includes a few tips on who to buy from, who to avoid and a good tip on getting the best buys on lenses for film cameras.

Love’em or hate’em, when it comes to camera filters there are two kinds of photographers and if you don’t like to put anything in front of your lens that might spoil its optical perfection, you can stop reading now.