The Photo Files: Unfiltered & Undeveloped

I had a strong opinion about the Canon RF 14mm f/1.4 VCM before I ever touched one — and that opinion was skepticism. Having now rented and shot it for a full weekend across Cambridge MA, the interior of a Lotus Emira, Easter portraits of my daughter, flowers, and street subjects, I can tell you: I was partly right, partly wrong, and the whole truth is more interesting than either. *This episode i...

In 1987, Canon did something photographers called a betrayal — they killed the entire FD lens mount and replaced it with the all-electronic EF system. To populate that new mount, Canon rushed out a first generation of lenses. Among them was one of the strangest, rarest, and most forgotten L-series lenses they've ever made: the Canon EF 50-200mm f/3.5-4.5L.Released in 1988 at around $700, this comp...

What did Henri Cartier-Bresson actually mean by "the decisive moment" — and is it even a real thing, or just a useful myth photographers have been chasing for seventy years? Welcome to Episode 1 of Unfiltered & Undeveloped, a new free-form series on The Photo Files where I sit down and think out loud about the ideas in photography I keep coming back to. No script, no tight edit, no B-roll cuta...