Free from want, for the moment.
November 21st, 2007
My pocket is full of cash from the recent sale of my D80 (yay for craigslist). In the post-sale euphoria, I normally start dreaming about what to buy next, but I can’t come up with anything. None of the current digicams hold any interest for me apart from the Canon G9 and the Leica M8, but I can’t imagine what I would do with either of those that I can’t do now besides not shooting film, which I’m not inclined to do at the moment. If we were to graph my satisfaction with shooting film, it would look like a wave, and having recently hit something like the bottom, my satisfaction has been steadily growing. So no digital, for the moment.
A medium format camera is always an option. Hasselblads and Mamiya rangefinders still look like fun to me, but I’d need a new scanner too, and then probably a new computer to handle the larger files, which would probably also mean that it would make sense to upgrade photoshop. It all just seems like too much bother when I don’t really know what I’d do with it.
There are still accessories that I could go for. Perhaps I should coble together some magnifiers to give my Hexar a .9x VF? It’s a thought, and a fairly cheap one at that, but it’s unlikely to revolutionize my photography. Perhaps if I was eyeing a fast fifty I’d be more inclined to go this route, but I don’t do that much shooting in really low light anymore; I’m getting too old to hang out in dark bars.
So, for the first time in a long time, I can’t think of a piece of photographic gear that I want. Given that I haven’t purchased any new camera or optical gear in over a year, this is kind of an odd feeling. Am I loosing my gear lust? Does this mean I’m in danger becoming one of those guys that answer every forum post about gear with that tired old rant, ‘It’s not the gear but the photographer.’ Or am I actually finding the artistic process more interesting than the technical process? I’m finding that the intellectual part of the process is shifting away from the technical decisions. Although the technical decisions are still interesting, they are like warming up and stretching before a workout; they are what I do before I do the thing I do so that I can do the thing better. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts and where it leads.
November 21st, 2007
Matt,
Like you, I have come to the point in life where I’m getting ‘content’ with my photographic equipment. I use digital capture and lightroom for the ‘mundane’, ‘must do’ photographs for work, and become more free, less techno-dependent with my film cameras out and about. It’s like being married. We spend a while finding whats right for us, then we make a choice and stick with it! We all look at the latest model, and just like the M8, I can’t afford it, and probably wouldn’t know what to do if I had it. I just want that little Leica CL on the side for holidays…..
November 21st, 2007
Why not say that your technical skills have progressed to the point at which they are now fully at your command, ready to be deployed in the service of your artistic vision?
Sounds like a good thing to me.
November 22nd, 2007
Congrats Matt. I’d say this shows considerable maturity as well. You’ve become comfortable w/ the processes you use, and now it’s time to actually do something with them.
My day job utilizes many tools too, in fact an order of magnitude greater than I use for photography. I’ve reached the point in my life where new tools are pretty much superfluous. I’ve got enough now to cover most contingencies. What it comes down to is figuring out a way to do what needs to be done with the tools already on hand. It might not be as efficient as could be done with some new fangled device, but it’s much cheaper and gets the job completed now - rather than some time in the future when the new fangled whachamacallit comes from Amazon. I go out to the van, look around at what’s on hand, and make something work.
Maybe I’m not very adventurous photographicly. Maybe more so, because I don’t fixate on some new gadget that’s going to make an infinitesimal difference. Put the money in the bank for the kid’s college fund.
November 22nd, 2007
Bill, I’ve pretty much given up the “mundane’, ‘must do’ photographs for work.” Life is just too short for it, but I know what you mean.
Justcorbly, that would be another way to put it. It’s interesting that technical skill is an antidote to desire for equipment.
“It might not be as efficient as could be done with some new fangled device, but it’s much cheaper and gets the job completed now”
I tend to favor this kind of solution as well, which is one reason for me to keep using film for the moment; it does what I want.
November 23rd, 2007
I have looked at your erecent shots, and I see you have a periodical need of finding rather formal subjects in quite linear compositions. In the view of this, I think you could refresh your vision with a good 21mm lens - IMHO the best one for this is the C Biogon 21/4,5, it is a reference lens in this fl for the total lack of distorsion, resolution, flare resistance and 3d rendering. It is also very compact, I think it could give you a push to make some more dramatic shots of the everyday objects you like to show. Here’s a couple of examples:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/1815174918/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/1814327117/
I tend to shoot what I can, in the spare time between sleeping and working, and since the same places and subjects become boring with time, I tend to rotate my lenses periodically, to force myself to see in a different manner - so far it has worked, although I find that in a crowded city, the longer lenses make it easier to extract a meaningful image for your negative.
November 25th, 2007
Nice shots Marek. I’ve never really got on with wide lenses; I have a 28 that sits on the shelf for no reason other than I can’t ever seem to find anything to shoot when it’s on the camera. Would a 21 be any different? Would 21 be so wide as to be categorically different from the 28?
November 26th, 2007
A 21mm lens either forces you to get 1 meter close to something, or it let’s you putw an entire something, you most likely never attempted to shoot in one go - into the frame. I particularly like the need to organize your foreground better with this fl, as it makes for a more balanced composition and creates more depth. A 28, or even 25 mm are not quite as dramatic, while a 15mm starts feeling like you have to keep your ears flat, else they get included in the frame…