Time marches on. Given my temperament, I am generally content with the (functional) status quo. This certainly applied to my website, which to me seemed adequately engaging, and has been gaining in readership over the last year or two, based both on photography articles and now, of course, my ramblings on the coronavirus pandemic.

My younger brother Matt, however, is my webmaster, and a very talented one at that. He runs Mainline WebWorks out of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. To him, my cozy and comfortable little website was dated and as his name is on it, he offered to bring it up to speed. Our priorities in this became improving the usability, upgrading the backend of the site which improves my options for formatting, such as allowing the images to occupy a bigger part of the screen.

I think you’ll see that he’s accomplished this. I have to now more careful with my image conversions as the larger sizes can definitely show things like clumsy camera handling and low light sensor noise. Still and all I’m extremely pleased. We’ve also improved viewers’ ability to subscribe to the site directly, or through Facebook. We are still tweaking some details such as fonts, and line spacing.

There is by the way, another Covid article in the works.

We hope you like the new design. We would welcome your comments.

Header image: December Evening Walk( Fujifilm XE3, XF 18-55mm f2.8-4).

As always, I would be honored if you would share this post.

It is week 27 of the COVID restrictions in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We are definitely seeing another surge now that fall has arrived.

We’ve actually set a record number of new cases per day with 2200 new Pennsylvania “cases” on 23 October compared to the Spring peak in mid-April at about 1700 cases per day. Happily, at this new peak, hospitalizations are only 37% of their peak in the spring. The death curve remains flat.

Around here we are seeing some activity, including in my own hospital, but so far it is not overwhelming. And we have tons of potential ICU capacity based on our reshuffling of beds earlier this year.

A little perspective however is in order. According to the most recent data on the Pennsylvania COVID 19 dashboard, the test positivity rate for the state is still around 5%, and the overall percentage of ER visits for “COVID like illness” is .8%. There is considerable variation among the counties.

Other states are surging also. States like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio are having what one might say is their first big peak, with an accompanying admission peak, more commensurate to what we saw in April.

Governor Wolf has so far resisted the temptation to re-impose our Spring restrictions. I’m hoping he realizes that for many businesses, another shutdown would be fatal to their existence. This virus is apparently going to be persistent, at some level we are going to have to figure a “workaround “.

It should be a hopeful sign, that President Trump, and his affected staff, have emerged from their infections essentially unscathed. I do recognize there are people reading this that may have wished for another outcome. I also note that he was by current practice rather aggressively treated. When you compare his disease course to that of Boris Johnson, who became ill in the spring there is a symbolic cause for optimism.

Mr. Johnson is you may recall in early April, contracted the virus. He became rather seriously ill to a point of needing an ICU, and by contemporary accounts required considerable supplemental oxygen. Much like his American counterpart, I am sure he received the maximum therapy available through the National Health Service of Britain at the time. But now we have Remdesivir, antibody cocktails, anticoagulation, and dexamethasone. 5 months later, our head of state, despite being older, had a much milder illness and quickly returned to a rather vigorous schedule.

If I keep writing these articles on a 2-week schedule, the next one will be after the election. It is been fashionable to accuse our Democratic Governors of playing politics with the virus, I myself have been guilty of this. At times, like in mid-July when restrictions were reimposed while cases were still flat, it seemed likely.

There are those who find the current case surges in swing states suspicious. They note that many democrats have already voted by mail, whereas Republicans tend to wait to cast their votes directly. They suggest that these case “surges” are manufactured to discourage Republicans from in-person voting. I might have been open to this concept except as mentioned above, there appears to be real illness associated with the increasing case numbers, at least in our commonwealth. Still, with masks and distancing, I have no fear of the polling stations.

in response to these articles in the past, I have been criticized, particularly on Facebook, for what some people feel is a cavalier approach to this outbreak. I think I’ve been fairly consistent, suggesting that we not react merely to the number of positive tests, but to factors such as hospital utilization, and of course deaths, to decide public policy regarding COVID 19. Given what been going on in the last week, I think it is time to be more careful now. We need to go back to more frequent handwashing, the wearing of masks (for what it’s worth) social distancing, and protection of the vulnerable. We need to carefully balance our understandable desire to socialize, with the risks of gatherings indoors.

There is some reason for cautious optimism. Obviously, with every new case that is either asymptomatic or recovers, that’s one less person who can transmit the virus. With over 5000 positive tests for instance in Luzerne County, if you factor in the asymptomatic’s that were never tested, you may have a lot of immune people in the region.

We also note that the virus is thought to be getting less virulent as time goes on, which is predictable. So far it seems to be the case, that in regions that are having their second or third peak, hospitalizations and death are far lower than when the virus first appeared.

Also, according to Dr. Fauci, we are perhaps 3-4 months from when a vaccine will be available. It is my hope that we can all find safe ways to patronize our small businesses to keep them afloat until the end of the pandemic but still avoid unnecessary spread. We need to come out of this, intact and healthy both as individuals and as a society.

We need to be not fearful, just careful.

As always, I would be honored if you would share this post.

Header image: Witch Hazel (Fujifilm X100V, TCL X100)

We are now in week 29 of what is apparently an endless state of behavior control by our omnipotent masters: the executive branch of Pennsylvania government. Once again, another legislative effort to loosen up the restrictions, in this case on the restaurant industry, has been vetoed by the governor. This is despite the fact that while we are seeing modest numbers of positive PCR tests, there is very little actual illness resulting.

I remind myself that when I posted my first “viral” article back in mid-March, I assume naïvely that this topic would die out by midsummer. That my cover image for this edition now features autumn foliage, is quite discouraging.

Meanwhile, our governor, in a conversation with Rep. Wendy Ullman of Bucks County, is caught on an open mike discussing the concept that for our elected elites, wearing masks in public is “political theatre”. Good to know.

In Pennsylvania, the small peak of cases we had over the summer is waning. The number of hospitalizations, ventilated patients are all decreasing from already modest levels and the percentage of emergency room visits devoted to COVID-like symptoms is well below 1%.

I think we know this anecdotally. Other than a few patients whom I have attended, I know perhaps 3 people who tested positive for this illness. One of them had a fairly severe flu-like illness from which she recovered. Another had a short period of mild respiratory symptoms. The third was absolutely asymptomatic and was retested in 4-5 days and found to be negative. Most people I talk to have similar impressions. I understand that I didn’t live or work in NYC or similar hotspots. I’m referring to Pa. and I think, most of the rest of the country.

One of the things I have been pondering about is the disparity I have noted between my liberal and conservative friends, and their attitude towards the pandemic. In general, my liberal friends tend to be much more concerned about the possibility of contracting the illness and are much more careful about human contact. My more conservative friends seem more willing to interact, and in general, are more casual about their behavior. In my mind, this crosses all intelligence levels in both political persuasions. While this disparity is not absolute, to me it seems pretty consistent.

Let me say that I am excluding from this discussion the more militant “anti-maskers” from this as #1 I don’t know anyone who is a complete nonconformist to the rules, and #2 given their lack of courtesy, I would tend to discount their opinions.

I don’t see anything innate in one’s political leanings that should lead to this effect. I refuse to believe for instance, that all my liberal friends, want to keep us shut down to affect the upcoming elections.

 I am left to believe that it is the media that we consume that forms our attitudes. It is clear to me that conservative media is more willing to entertain a certain skeptical approach to the pandemic through their pundits. The liberal media tends to emphasize the case numbers and the strains on the healthcare system where they occur. If there is a political motivation for this, I think it exists within the media and their allies in the political parties. This is a potentially dangerous game as it inhibits a purely rational approach to this outbreak.

So I shall once again restate my current thinking.  Yes, there is/was a pandemic. Each of the states has had different peaks depending on travel patterns and other factors. There has been an “excess of deaths” throughout the country, though the numbers don’t precisely match the COVID death numbers. There is a reasonable case to be made that some of the additional deaths may be consequences of the lockdown, particularly suicides, addiction, and the fear of hospitals by people who required medical attention.

Currently, I believe that per a number of sources including the New York Times article, that PCR testing is oversensitive and maybe creating a lot of false positive “cases”. I believe that rather than worry about the numbers of additional positive tests, we should scale our precautions based on actual disease burden which for now is modest at best.

I look at the pandemic the way I would look at a critically ill patient during my years as an intensivist. Let’s say a patient is admitted to the intensive care unit, with sepsis and low blood pressure. We would intervene in this, often by giving a large amount of IV fluid, plus drugs that can compress the blood vessels, raising the pressure. These modalities though, have long-term side effects that can be life-threatening, so in these situations, we are constantly testing. If the patient’s blood pressure appears to stabilize, we begin to withdraw the interventions. If the patient deteriorates then we may need to re-increase the therapy, but ultimately the goal is to discontinue these measures before they do the patient more harm.

This experience informs my attitude towards the current status of COVID in most of the country. The measures we took back in March, were certainly appropriate then, but they have been continued in situations where the “patient” seems to have stabilized. The problem is that prolonged intervention has done a lot of damage to large and small businesses that are now either crippled or deceased.

The goal of therapy needs to be the return of the “patient” to normal life as soon as possible. I suspect we would be doing this more aggressively if governor Wolf was not a “lame duck”, and if a presidential election were not imminent.

It’s now Autumn. Time to end the political theatre.

As always, we would be honored if you would share.

Header Image : Scene Along Glenside Road (Fujifilm X100V)

Well, here we are in week 8 of the coronavirus shutdown. For those of us in Luzerne County, there is essentially no end in sight. Clearly, we had been a hot spot in the state.   But our numbers have stabilized or decreased despite the vastly increased testing available.

This feels promising compared to the situation where testing was less scarce but our growth in cases was exponential. Something is happening. It’s likely not all because of mitigation.

It is worth noting however that here, in Luzerne County, 82 of 112 deaths have come out of nursing facilities. Sad, but these vulnerable souls are not representative of the working public.

In Pennsylvania, there are now 3 phases of existence. Until recently most of our state, no matter how few cases there were, was in the red phase. We are ordered by fiat to stay home. We can actually be questioned and cited for “nonessential travel”. So-called “essential” businesses are open. We have been permitted to visit our grocery stores, beer distributors, hardware stores, big-box stores, and gas stations. With masks and social distancing, we seem to have been able to control the spread of this virus.

If we are deemed to be worthy, we may someday get to the yellow phase where we can open other retailers, but still cannot gather in a group larger than 25, or visit bars or restaurants. It appears that this viral purgatory will be denied to us until at least June 1.

Does this mean that churches will still not be able to open? What happened to freedom of religion?

Green phase, where things return to basically normal almost seems like a dream.

The problem is, I remember what we were told at the beginning of this. Remember: “two weeks to flatten the curve”? Well, we damn well flattened the curve. So much so in fact, that hospitals who have been curtailing other services, threaten to lay off workers because of low volume. Only modest percentages of hospital beds have been needed for coronavirus patients. There are plenty of ventilators. Yet two months later we remain locked down.

Looking at the number of new cases in Pennsylvania, the curve is noisy but is clearly trending downward.

Even more disturbing to me is the attitude of the state government. It appears for the Wolfe administration, the new default position for our commonwealth is “closed for business”. We only get to open if we are properly respectful and deserving. He seems little inclined to relieve our misery.

This feels unconstitutional. Given the crisis, we gave our state government some leeway and submitted ourselves to rules (not laws) that go against the basic freedoms of society. This was done for one purpose, which was realized. Now as others have pointed out, Gov. Wolfe has moved the goalposts from the field to an undisclosed location. And he does this without explanation.

The administration might want to study data from states that have reopened. Georgia is a case in point. Their numbers prior to late April were not the most favorable, yet since opening their new cases are declining. Hopefully, this is because to an extent, this virus is running its course as the season progresses.

We are now living in a society where state agencies in the state police are being used to suppress our freedoms and our commerce in a way that will damage our economy for months if not years.

Warren County in northwestern Pennsylvania is an example. As of this date, they have had exactly one case of coronavirus with no deaths, yet they were under severe lockdown for 2 months. How lovely for them that they will now be permitted to move to a slightly less damaging state of existence? And much of the rest of the state, many counties with single- and double-digit case numbers are similarly oppressed. This is ridiculous.

I have been uncomfortable thinking about this idea, but I now have to wonder whether this is political. As a swing state, a damaged economy might be helpful in moving Pennsylvania towards a democratic challenger. And yes, politics is that ruthless.

I think at this point Gov. Wolfe has jumped the shark. What started as a reasonable response to a bad situation has morphed into tyranny. An increasing number of counties are declaring that they no longer will submit. This rebellion includes a lot of South-Central Pennsylvania including Dauphin County, where Harrisburg is located.

In answer to this development, the Governor has doubled down. He referred to counties and businesses threatening to open as “cowards” and “deserters”. He threatens to use weapons such as state licensure, access to federal funds, and business insurance as retaliation for this behavior. His words suggest he has no compassion for those who are struggling financially in these times.

To quote him: “in the end, the ultimate goal is to defeat this virus”. Except that we can’t defeat it by hiding. The goal should be to get through this pandemic with the least amount of medical and psychological morbidity, and economic damage.

At this point, we have all the tools for dealing with the pandemic. We wear our masks, wash our hands, and observe social distancing. We’ve been practicing for 2 months.

Governor Wolfe has a perverse concept of cowardice. He believes that a small business owner, who desperately needs to reopen to avoid insolvency is a coward. He considers that people who are in dire straits and are willing to face exposure to feed their families as cowards.

Meanwhile, Wolfe, and his vast state executive, are paid biweekly and doing fine, thank you.

Lockdown was sold to us as a temporary strategy for extraordinary circumstances. It has worked.

But now if we are to avoid economic devastation, it needs to end.

I’m writing this article on 21 March 2020. I am ensconced in my mountain enclave, in a state of semi-isolation because of the coronavirus situation. I say “semi-isolation” because although I mainly write about photography issues on this little website, my living is made as a pulmonary physician for the Veteran’s Administration and I have to go to work. I think it is likely that I am going to have an “interesting” next several weeks.

Things are already somewhat tense in our facility. We have made great efforts to reschedule nonessential physician visits, handling things over the phone. We have shut down routine testing. I undergo a brief medical history and have my temperature taken on arriving for work in the morning. All of this seems very prudent to me. The hospital is actually very quiet right now, with a very much reduced risk for exposure. This, however, may change.

More ominously I have been conducting seminars to update my colleagues on the management of mechanical ventilators for the types of problems seen in a SARS-type infection. We have begun to convert our short procedure unit into an adjunct ICU/negative pressure room. All of this is a little scary for a hospital not typically engaged in the care for very high acuity patients. Hopefully, this will all be overkill, but it’s clearly necessary to plan for the worst.

It’s very likely that my pleasant part-time pulmonary/sleep medicine career is about to revert to my former life as a critical care physician.

In terms of the disease, I am somewhat hopeful about several recent developments. Number one would be the possibility that several medications (hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and remdesivir) already available or nearly available, may have activity against the virus. Number two: hopefully the infectivity and/or virulence of this bug will fade over time much as do many of the seasonal viruses. It would be hoped that if there is a summertime pause, a vaccine can be developed to be available for the next season.

Like many people, I watched yesterday’s press conference where Dr. Fauci seemed to downplay the president’s enthusiasm for the proposed medications. This is inevitable for a man deeply involved in research, a culture where a treatment is only endorsed after multiple double-blind studies prove its efficacy. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for such perfection. He is right when he says that if we are to try these medications, then we need to keep the data so we can draw appropriate conclusions regarding their efficacy.

Meanwhile, I have two children in Seattle Washington. Both are healthy, and working from home, and report to me that all is well. Hopefully, that will continue.

On the other hand, I have a 93-year-old physician father sequestered at his home. I do visit but stay at least 6 feet away from him. From his point of view, as he doesn’t drive, things aren’t that much different than normal. These visits may have to stop at some point, which is sad.

I pray for my friends whose jobs and thus their income has been interrupted by this mess. Hopefully, we can find ways to help.

My advice to all would be to lay low, wash your hands frequently. Perhaps a shower after a trip to the grocery store, or other public spaces would be prudent. Disinfect work surfaces obsessively. By all means, get outdoors for exercise if you can.

I would ask your physician about hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin. The doses are readily available on the web and at least around here, they are still available in the pharmacies.

It would be really smart to stop smoking at this point.

And for God’s sake, don’t be a martyr. If you’re sick don’t go to public places, and don’t go to work. Even if you are a healthcare worker, stay home. You’ll do more harm than good.

I fervently hope, and cautiously believe that in a month or so, if all of the efforts in place are effective, the curves will flatten, and things will begin to normalize.

Then I can go back to writing about cameras.

As I have written before, I like snow. This makes me somewhat of an outlier among my friends in northeastern Pennsylvania. Sadly, at least for me, this winter is panning out to be a bust in that regard. Even in the highlands where I reside, we have been experiencing tepid little 1 to 2-inch snowfalls, which will melt before becoming part of a snowpack potentially useful for recreation.

The lack of winter scenery makes photography rather unrewarding. I need to find snow.

In Pennsylvania, that means traveling north and west where the climate is colder, and the high terrain, closer to the Great Lakes can capture the lake effect precipitation. On a whim, I packed my car with gear and set my nav system with the destination of Wellsboro Pennsylvania in Tioga County.

Now I used to spend a lot of time in Wellsboro as it is located in the middle of an absolutely glorious wilderness area where I have mountain biked, skied, and backpacked. My children will remember camping there, to visit Pennsylvania’s “Grand Canyon”, also known as the Pine Creek Gorge.

Now I have always felt the former moniker was a bit pretentious, as there are equally dramatic features, in other parts of the state. I think of the Loyalsock Gorge at World’s End State Park, not to mention our own Lehigh River Gorge. Nonetheless, someone in Tioga County had the marketing chutzpah to grab the name and so it stands.

In the last 10 years, I’ve unconsciously I think avoided traveling the back roads of northern Pennsylvania. During much of that time, the fracking boom caused enormous traffic congestion as legions of tanker trucks bringing water to the fracking sites made travel unpleasant. As much of the fracking is over, I felt comfortable that a trip might be pleasant.

A trip from my home to Wellsboro, is about more than the destination, as the intervening scenery is also rather beautiful. It becomes important to resist the navigation system’s first impulse which is to keep you on route 80 W. It is better to use one of the more scenic state routes. In this case, I drove north to Route 118 which goes almost to Williamsport, and a short stint on Interstate 180, then to route 15 for most of the way to Wellsboro. The inefficiency of this route caused my navigation system to complain for a surprising amount of the trip before it finally caught on.

My camera gear for the trip was all Fujifilm, in this case, the X100F for street style shooting, and my XE3 with multiple lenses for landscape work. Both cameras recharge from USB and are light and compact.

The drive on Route 118 takes you through first forest areas, as it tracks south of North Mountain, arguably the southern front of the high Allegheny plateau. As you approach Williamsport, the altitude drops and the land flattens out to the vast farmland, so prevalent in the center of the state.

A short trip on route I-180 takes you to route 15 N, where you begin a pretty dramatic climb into the “endless mountain” region of the state.

Feeling hungry, I stopped at the town of Morris Pennsylvania, nestled in a creek valley among the overlooking ridges. I love small-town bar/restaurants and the Crossroads Inn is a wonderful example. Rustic but clean, it featured a robust menu that reportedly draws people from as far south as Williamsport, particularly for the roast beef. I share a lot of interests with the locals there, and the conversation turned to deer hunting, timbering and trout stocking.

I arrived in Wellsboro, as I planned about 2 PM to a hazy sky and the temperature in the mid-30s. Not wishing to waste time, I drove west out of town to Leonard Harrison State Park, which is the eastern overlook to the Gorge. My hope was to grab a tripod and photograph the multiple small waterfalls on the “Turkey Trail”, a path that leads from the rim to the floor of the canyon, but there were ice and snow present and thus the trail was closed for fear of injuries. As I was alone I elected not to poach. As the afternoon light improved, I shot images from the observation areas (I had no snow scenes of the canyon from the past).

As pretty as the canyon is, there’s also beauty to be found along the way. To the west of Wellsboro is an area of high rolling farmland that extends almost to the rim of the canyon itself. I remember many years ago hiking in the remote wilderness of the “West Rim Trail” along the gorge while watching a farmer cutting hay on the opposite side.

There are lovely old farmsteads on this network of back roads along with a smattering of churches of similar vintage.

At sunset, I returned to town, to claim my room at the Penn Wells Lodge, a very nice modern facility. My outside entrance room cost all of $87 and included a free breakfast.

Dinner was at a highly recommended restaurant called the Wellsboro House. I had a great meal and a lot of fun with a lovely crew of servers and wait staff.

The next morning once fortified, I took a walk around town to see what changed in the years since I’ve last visited.

Wellsboro itself is a wonderful self-sufficient town, the kind that often develops when there is no bigger city nearby. Though a tourist destination because of the canyon, it is obviously a full-service place of residence, with clothing stores, a furniture store, and a department store that all appear locally owned.

Heading out of town west, there is a neighborhood of beautiful old homes, some of which serve as bed-and-breakfasts.

Even in the dead of winter, the town is neat and clean, the historic storefronts, for the most part, occupied and decorated. There are a number of bars and restaurants, which from my experience in the past serve solid food in generous portions. There is a sense of civic pride, and apparently an interest in the arts, as there appeared to be multiple facilities dedicated to the pursuit.

I’m still not sure why there is a statue in the town park dedicated to the poem “Wynkin, Blinkin, and Nod”, rather than to some town founder or local military hero. Maybe I just lack a sense of whimsy.

I was looking forward to the trip home. To complete the scenic loop, I had decided to use State route 6 for the eastward leg of the trip home. This drive is one of the most beautiful in the state, as you travel past areas of rolling farmland, and scenic overlooks.

Unfortunately, fracking is still occurring and I got stuck behind two tanker trucks who drove annoyingly slowly, and far enough apart that it was unsafe to pass.

Driving along Route 6 there is a phenomenon I’ve noticed in the past. As you drive it seems that every other small town appears extremely rundown and impoverished, while the others are charming and well-maintained. It does remind one how fragile the economy can be in rural Pennsylvania.

My travels finally brought me to the town of Dushore, where I could finally part company with my buddies in the trucks. Here I turned south on to route 487 over Red Rock Mountain back to Route 118. Somewhat ironically it turned out that at the top of the mountain, at Ricketts Glen State Park, there was ample snow for recreation at a location roughly 40 minutes from my home.

Writing travelogues is not my usual deal. But in point of fact, the “Endless Mountain” region of Pennsylvania, stretching across most of the north is a spectacular destination easily reached by a large portion of the population of the Northeast. It’s not all beautiful, but for the most part, the scenery is gorgeous, rivaling places like Vermont and Maine. It’s well worth the trip.

Just watch out for tanker trucks.

When you live in an area long enough, you eventually will run out of novel places to photograph. Though I strive to find new settings to explore, my daily exercise “hikes” tend to center around a limited number of trails that are close to my home whether in Pennsylvania or the Adirondacks.

Now I agree that every season brings its own peculiar “touch” to the landscape, but after 30+ years, I’ve seen most of the variations. For this reason, on a familiar trail, it’s tempting to either forgo bringing a camera at all (relying on my cell phone for any photography) or bring lighter kit, like my small Sony RX 100 pocket camera. Though the latter is capable of good imaging, I get nowhere near the quality for instance, of one of my larger sensored Fujifilm X cameras.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I visited a local state game lands. One attraction is the “Pear farm” a historic orchard that in the 1920s occupied a ridge overlooking the Nescopeck creek valley.  By the sheerest of coincidences, it also overlooked a dense woodland shrouding an illegal still.

I walk this frequently and have obtained some good photography there over the years. I have never found any sign of the still, which said to have been destroyed by “revenuers” before prohibition ended.

 The Pennsylvania Game Commission maintains the property by mowing the field and planting grasses that are apparently a rich food source for a variety of wildlife. But on this particular day, the sky was gray, and there was only a light coating of snow. There had also been some timbering done which I was eager to see. I did not anticipate much in the way of photographic opportunities. Nonetheless, the only camera bag in the car was one containing my Fujifilm X 100F and X E3. More to add weight and thus burn calories, rather than with any hope of photographic opportunity, I shouldered the bag, grabbed a monopod and began the hike up the mountain.

The timbering, as it turned out, was extensive. To my eye, what looked like several hundred acres had been cleared, with only a few spindly seed trees left to repopulate the land. I know from conversations with game commission foresters, that such timbering is done for habitat restoration, In this case, the goal was reestablishing a mixed oak forest, albeit one I will never see. In the meantime, forest succession will provide a variety of habitats for game animals.

It early in the year, the sun angle was low, and in the late afternoon with clearing to the west, there were already red highlights in the gray sky. The clouds, far from a uniform white, were more complex and foreboding. The timbered landscape created a stark, slightly disturbing scene. As it was on a weekend, the timber crew was off and the machines idle which opened up my options for access.

Most intriguingly, the rather aggressive timbering had actually opened up a pleasant view scape down the Nescopeck Valley to the distant farmland of Butler Township.

From my point of view, what I assumed would be a rather mundane walk for exercise, turned out to have enough visual interest to stimulate my photography gene.

Every once in a while something will change a familiar landscape into something delightful. It may be a new angle to the light, strange atmospheric conditions, or in this case a physical change to the land. Nonetheless as a photographer, one probably ought to consider packing sufficient quality gear that you don’t miss out on opportunities when they present.

I’ve been reading the early reviews on the revolutionary Fujifilm GFX 100 camera body, one of the most spectacularly capable and forward-looking products ever released since the dawn of digital photography roughly 20 years ago.  It has caused me to reflect back on my journey as a longtime Fujifilm shooter.

I remember the beginnings, which were oh, so different.

As I have noted before, on this site, I have a strange penchant for underdogs.  I must unconsciously seek out quirky and unconventional products, that are outside the mainstream.  In the 1990s, when everybody else was buying BMWs, I bought a Subaru SVX, a strange looking but lovely four-wheel-drive coupe.  My newest barbecue pit, a Hasty Bake, a charcoal cooker that is been made in roughly the same form since 1947.  I persist in using my Gravely G Series garden tractor, a stout design from the 1960s, rather than a more modern design from John Deere, or Kubota. 

And I’m a Fujifilm shooter.

I first became interested in the brand round about 2002.  At that point as a former film shooter I had been dabbling with a variety of point and shoot digital cameras, finally graduating to the Olympus E10/20 series. These sort of looked like digital SLRs, but had a fixed lens and a smaller sensor.  As I had some Nikon lenses, I was looking for a body with the Nikon F mount.  In my price range, that meant either a Nikon D100 or this weird camera from Fujifilm, called the S2 pro. 

The Nikon and the Fujifilm were based on a Nikon film body, the N 80 prosumer SLR. The D 100 was a fairly well-integrated product much like modern designs with good performance for the times. The Fujifilm, however, was a weird sort of hybrid, which many reviewers referred to as a “frankencamera” as the digital side of the camera, was obviously grafted to the mechanical parts in a much cruder way.

This manifested for instance, in the need for two types of batteries, a CR 44 to power the body functions, and two AA batteries, for the digital side.  The camera was slower and did not focus as well as its Nikon competition.  And it used weird memory cards.  But much like today, it offered an unusual sensor, with a diagonal rather than a square grid pattern, then offered higher resolution and better low light performance than the conventional sensor in the Nikon.  Plus, even then, Fujifilm color science was better.

Needless to say, given my proclivities, I bought the Fujifilm.  And I have never looked back.

I followed that camera with the S3 Pro and S5 pro bodies.  In each case, the integration and sensors of the camera improved, but the performance was always a step behind the mainstream SLRs, in terms of functionality and at times, resolution. 

Eventually, when Fujifilm stopped making DSLRs, I drifted over to Nikon digital bodies.  I still have a D800E that serves me well when I need it.

Then, in 2011, I acquired my first X100.  Once again, it had wonderful picture quality, but now a beautiful design, and a gorgeous lens, but was slow, with unreliable autofocus.  This remained a pattern for many years with subsequent camera offerings including the X Pro 1 and XT1, both of which did not perform at a level of their immediate competition.  Happily, these cameras were improved significantly over time due to Fujifilm’s continual firmware updates.

But over time, this penchant for releasing immature cameras is changing.  I think it’s clear that the last round of product offerings, the XT3 in particular, for the first time are seen as a highly competitive, if not clearly superior products compared for instance, to the Sony, and Nikon equivalents.

Enter the GTX 100.  Now we have a product that literally leapfrogs, over its competition, offering huge resolution (100 megapixels), in a beautifully designed professional level body.  It is the first medium format camera with image stabilization, as well as video features that rival anything in this format.  Now the body is quite expensive, too rich for my blood, at $10,000. However its nearest competitor, the Hasselblad H6D-100c is $28,000 for essentially the same (though non-stabilized) sensor without talking about very expensive Hasselblad glass.   The Fujifilm GFX lens line is also very high quality but proportionally priced.  One can buy a very nice Fujifilm GFX 100 body and lens collection for significantly less than the price of the Hasselblad body alone.

It’s so much fun, as one who remembers the bad old days of weird Fujifilm cameras, to see the brand emerge as a major mainstream force in the industry.

I think we’re finally done with “frankencameras”.