Five at Five – Khürt Williams of Island in the Net

This week’s Five at Five Intro features Photographer is Khürt Williams. Khürt’s About Page says:

I’m Khürt Williams, and I work as an information security architect. Decades ago, I immigrated from the Caribbean country of St. Vincent & the Grenadines for university. I live in the New Jersey suburb of Montgomery Township, a few miles from Princeton University. I started this blog in 2003 as an outlet for my random thoughts on open source software, Apple computers and information technology. However, after a few years, it morphed into a photoblog.

Five at Five Questions

When and how did you start on your photographic journey?

During the winter of 1988, I took an introductory 35mm film college photography course at Drew Univerisity to meet the art elective requirements. I bought the best camera I could afford at the time; a Pentax P3 SLR with SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/2 lens. I still have the Pentax-A lens, but I sold the P3 last year. I learned the fundamentals of photographing with the camera in manual mode, using aperture and shutter to control exposure, depth of field and motion. I spent the winter completing assignments and shooting most black and white 35mm film stock such as Ilford HP5, Kodak Tri-X Pan and Kodak T-MAX. When not exposing a roll of film, I spent hours learning to develop negatives and make prints in the darkroom.

What subject do you like photographing the most?

With a few exceptions, my early photography was minimalist and focused on everyday objects or portraits of friends and family. When I switched to digital in the late ’90s, I rarely shot in black and white and quickly switched to photographing landscape to architecture. While I have been drawn to street photography and bird photography in more recent years, I feel that my favourite photographs are landscapes and cityscapes.

Have you been influenced by other photographers, if so by whom and why? If not, who is your favourite photographer?

That’s a challenging question for me to answer. I don’t spend any time reading books written by or about famous photographers. It’s not something I do. I read a lot of blogs written by amateur and professional photographers, and one could say they have collectively influenced my photography. My favourite photographer is humanitarian assignment photographer David duChemin. I like his non-tribal rule-breaking approach to photography. David seems genuinely interested in helping photographers document life with joy and freedom. I recommend reading David’s book, 20 Ways to Stop Messing Around with Your Camera and Make Better Photographs Without Buying Any More Gear.

What is the go-to camera equipment that you use regularly and what software do you use to process your images?

I’ve used a lot of digital cameras (including iPhones) over the years but my go-to digital photography equipment is my Fujifilm X-T3 camera with my Fujinon XF27mmF2.8 R WR pancake lens (~41mm full-frame equivalent). I have used my Fujinon XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR (~ 24-83 full-frame equivalent) less often since I bought that lens. The Fujifilm X-T3 is mostly all metal, and it has actual, dedicated, single-purpose, individually marked dials for each ISO, aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation and metering mode. I love the retro SLR design of the X-T3. It reminds me of the kinds of cameras engineers created before the start of the “disposable plastic” era. Shortly after buying the Fuji camera, I started shooting 35mm film again. My go-to camera for 35mm film photography is a nearly 40-year-old Minolta XD-11. I have a few Minolta lenses, but the XD-11 is usually paired with the MD Rokkor-X 45mm f/2 pancake lens. All my images are imported to and edited in Adobe Lightroom (now Classic CC), which I have used since 2008. In my opinion, it’s the most powerful piece of “digital darkroom” macOS software available. Adobe Photoshop, which I learned how to use several years ago, is also a part of my digital workflow. I also use Luminar Ai for cropping and sometimes for sky replacement. I send my 35mm film to various labs for development. I bought an Epson V600 scanner during the pandemic and now do all my scanning myself. I wanted more control. I do not edit my 35mm film negatives.

What is your favourite method of processing an image? (i.e., colour, monochrome, saturated, dreamy look etc)

One of the things that drew me to Fujifilm digital cameras is the film simulations named after Fujifilm’s photographic films; PROVIA, Velvia, ACROS and ASTIA. By adjusting the in-camera settings (highlight tone, shadow tone, white balance, grain, colour, sharpness, noise reduction), I can create film simulation “recipes” that mimic 35mm film stock or something entirely new. My favourite recipe is Fuji X Weekly’s Nostalgic Negative which is meant to mimic the Nostalgic Negative on Fuji’s medium format cameras. Fuji based Nostalgic Negative on an analysis of the Kodak film photographs of William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, and others. While the work of these photographers was varied, the commonality was low-contrast, high saturation and warmth. The X-T3 LCD and viewfinder can be set in “what you see is what you’ll get” mode allowing me to visualise the result better. The recipes produce JPEG images. The RAW file is unaffected. I use the JPEG images as is or as a starting point for editing my RAW images. In short, I am attracted to low-contrast, high-saturation and warm colour images and high-contrast, gritty black and white.