Welcome Back/Some love for the basics.

Well this place has been rather quiet, hasn't it? Fear not, for I'm back (not that anyone would've likely noticed my absence in all fairness). I'm going to be using this as a parallel for the blog I've got up and running on the new website (www.woolcottphoto.net) but this will be solely for my posts, as opposed to those by Johnno and Frankie. Here's to some more semi-regular blogging from now on.

On a rather random note, here's the post I wish to resume play with:

I bought my first digital camera over 4 years ago now, and in terms of technological timeframes, that's at least two model cycles. That camera was a Nikon D40, the most basic camera Nikon offered, or probably have offered. It can't autofocus lenses of its own accord, can't meter with old lenses, has a single control dial, almost no customisable buttons, no clever art modes, flash modes, smile detection, live view or any other mod-cons. What it does do, it does perfectly well though. It's beautifully simple, just the equivalent of a light tight box with a shutter in it given the way I use it.

I don't like autofocus when I'm doing work for myself; it's great when you have fidgety subjects in a studio setting, but when I'm doing my own street work I find it gets in the way of things like pre-focussing and off-centre compositions. As such I use manual lenses a lot of the time for a my recreational stuff; something which brings the D40 into the spotlight. The mount can take more or less any F-Mount lens you like, even Non-AI, which have been off limits for the vast majority of Nikon users for at least two decades now. Therefore there are some great lenses out there going for little to no money. Lenses like the 50mm H-C f/2; fast, compact, well-built and a wonderful way of drawing. In fact, other than my Leitz glass, this little Nikkor is probably my favourite, and other than being a little long at times, I have absolutely no reservations in claiming that this is probably my 'Desert Island Lens'.

And as much as I love my trusty S5 (it's a reliable workhorse) it doesn't have the same lens compatibility as the D40, and it's that which allows me to use my favourite lens on a digital body. The fact that it happens to be a light and simple body (not to mention cheap, both in terms of initial cost and with regard to the amount of space it eats up on my hard-drives) is just the proverbial icing. Until Nikon come out with a body which can use these lenses and provides me with something I really miss (maybe full frame or a markedly better viewfinder) I can't see myself getting rid of the D40. It must be coming to the end of its life now, given that it's taken over 100k shots, but until then, I'm going to keep using it. Now isn't that very green of me?

(Alex)

I'm Moving...

..to tumblr.

It's just prettier.

So farewell and good luck...

http://woolcott.tumblr.com

A creative block.

I can't seem to think up any decent photographic ideas at the moment.

It's not for a lack of gear or opportunity, I'm just not feeling it at the moment. And there's got to be a reason why not.

Normally in these sorts of lulls I just take the opportunity to do some homework i.e. looking at other people's work, sort the boring tech and gear stuff I normally hate doing and tidy up my archives and hard-drives. All the boring stuff which has to be done, but normally doesn't get done because I'm either too lazy or too busy.

But this time it's sticking. I've run out of techy stuff to sort, I've filed all my negatives neatly. My hard-drives are all neat and de-fragmented. My cameras are spotless and my lenses have all been CLA'd. Yet I haven't had anything by way of a flash of inspiration. So I think it's time for a photo weekend. I've got to take some time out and just bully myself into getting creative by putting myself in a position where I have to come away with a decent shot. No ifs, buts or maybes. Just some good photos. For the first time in well over a month.

...And I'm Back

Happy New Year to you all &c &c...

Now, back to business

I'd been deliberating recently whether the D300 was going to be sticking around, but I've come to the conclusion that it just wasn't quite fitting in anymore. The Fuji is perfectly fast for me, and far more predictable, reliable and just plain better for straight out of camera (SOOC) images.

Sure, the high ISO isn't as good, and it is about as far removed from a sports camera as one can get before moving into the realms of medium format film.

But then again, I don't shoot sports (much), my lens collection has contracted but grown in speed (my slowest lens is the 55mm f/3.5 micro, but that definitely is worth the slower glass because of its brilliance as a macro and daytime normal lens) thus stopping my reaching for the ISO button when the light gets a little worse than usual.

So I got rid of the D300

And I feel far better for it. I'm no longer feeling guilty for leaving a camera which is undeniably brilliant, but ultimately less well suited to my shooting than the Fuji, languishing in the Peli.

Now I'm eyeing up a Rolleiflex which actually works properly (rarer than I had first anticipated) to give me something to experiment with in the next few weeks.

I do love to be beside the seaside

It's far easier to take photos when you don't have a load of stuff to do straight afterwards. Stuff going in with an open eye and mind, you need to go in with an uncluttered mind and eye if you want to get any worthwhile shots. Suffice to say I need to have a bloody good tidy at the moment, because nothing is coming off quite how I had either planned or hoped. Alas, such is life and photography.

I'm going to go and play with some film and developer now - I might scan it in if anything worthwhile comes up. In the meantime however -

It's just a waiting game

Photography seems to be a brilliant metaphor for life to me. It's all about biding your time for the perfect combination of factors to come together so you can create something beautiful. Most of the time it doesn't quite work, and you can see some way to improve what you've done. But the important thing is that you've had a chance to learn, and as a result you'll improve as a photographer.

Most people don't have an infinite amount of time to wait however. Some of us only have a matter of minutes to get the shot, whereas others have days or weeks in which to get something which could be considered a respectable outcome. Some people thrive on this sort of time-pressure, and others just crumble, and waste more time worrying about how they'll handle having so little time, wasting yet more of what little time they indeed have.

(This one of the things which really annoys me about most so-called photographers. They spend more time researching and buying gear than they do using it, and then barely push the ridiculously expensive things they do buy to the limits. Now I'm not saying that it's completely the photographer, good gear does ease the picture-making process by quite a considerable margin, but it's hardly the be all and end all. I won't go any further, as so many people have already said this before me as to render anyone adding anything more to the point utterly pointless, but suffice to say that it bugs me to see people buying £3000 cameras and then never taking it off the manufacturer's default settings.)

Anyway, back to my original point...

Photography lets me see more clearly. And the clearer I can see the better a photographer I can be. It's a nice little predictable cycle, and a little predictability is a nice thing in a world where you can seemingly rely on so little to still be there if you turn your back.

Photography is far more reliable than the train I was stuck waiting for when I took this. 33 minutes late. Fucking useless.



And oh yeah - Merry Christmas

55mm * 1.54 = The way I see the world

That's right.

I see the world in 85mm.

I don't know why, but a the focal length which a 55mm lens on my D300 or my S5 seems to be the way I envisage a photo before I've even brought the viewfinder to my eye. I used to be a bit of a 28mm nut, mainly because it fell into the range of that mystical thing, the 'normal' lens (on a cropped DSLR at least), but now I find myself deep in the short-telephoto camp. It just seems the most natural perspective for me.

This may well be because my favourite two lenses of all time for SLRs happen to fall into this category (the Nikkor 50mm f/2 and the Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5), but if that's the case, well so be it. I've taken ALL of my favourite ever photos with either these two lenses, or the similarly worthy 17-55mm f/2.8 (but that's a bit too easy a lens for my liking, there's some pleasure to be had in using a manual aperture and focusing lens which is completely missing from an AF-S, all-auto lens).

I think I might need to train myself to get a little bit of a larger perspective at some point soon though, I'm focusing on the small details too much as it stands.