Index
The best camera is the one you have with you. The second best camera is the one you know how to use to get the image you want1. Sometimes it feels like I’m working with anything but the best cameras available to me. What I mean is, we’ve all got really great cameras sitting in our pockets these days, but how often do we use them to really compose a shot?
For me, it’s not all that often. If I look through the camera roll on my phone it’s 90% photos of my kid or my dog, 8% photos of things I need to remember, like memos2 or where I put my keys, and a measly 2% is photos I deliberately took because I wanted to capture a moment.
And that was not my intention when I bought my phone. No, sir. I was going to use it to take beautiful photos of everything, all the time! Famous last words. So, part of this project is to be intentional with my cameras3. I’ve got a couple although the phone is actually the newest one at five years old and counting. And it’s been good getting to know them (again) and making sure I can get them to do what I want them to do.
This week, I tried to work my “proper” cameras rather than my phone. Didn’t make it every day; it was a busy week and sometimes the camera I had was just my phone. Still, it felt good to get back into the pile of lenses to see what I could capture. Here are the week’s notes:
8 July 2022 - “Power!” - Part of getting out of my house and moving this week meant taking some detours from my usual commute. For this photo, I went completely off the roads and down along a small river deep in the countryside. I plan to do more of this as soon as I can.
9 July 2022 - “Pre-flight” - My knees almost buckled under me while I squatted down in the middle of the road to get the photo and all the while, the only thing in my head was Elton John singing “Rocket Man.”
10 July 2022 - “Working” - The weeds and brush grow so fast here that keeping them cut back from the roads is a full time job for a small army of city-employees. Truthfully, I was a bit worried about these guys because it was so hot, but the had a truck with shade and water nearby.
11 July 2022 - “Car” - Two thoughts here: this was one of the phone days. Just could not get out of my house in time to take a real camera; it was too late in the day and I wouldn’t have been able to take any photos with the cameras. Instead, I just snapped this with my phone. The other thought it is - there’s a car under there. It’s been there for at least 15 years. I wonder about it a lot.
12 July 2022 - “The Day the Tripods Came” - John Christopher’s The White Mountains trilogy broke my brain and my heart when I first read them as a child. A loose interpretation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds but if the Martians had won, the books are sharply written and deeply moving. I love them so much I can’t read them anymore but tall, spindly towers4 of any kind always make me think of the Martians and their tripods.
13 July 2022 - “Silhouette” - File this one under, “I can and will do better.” There are quite a few shots in that collection already and it’s only the second week done. Still, I like the composition and framing. But I’m going to use a slightly wider lens and try to get there a little bit earlier…
14 July 2022 - “Dragons” - This one, too. The camera I had with me had a telephoto lens. The only way I could get the shot was to scoot back and zoom in. All the while I kept thinking, “I have a perfectly good macro lens…at home.” So, yeah, there are going to be a whole book’s worth of dragonfly photos before this project is done. Promise.
Axiom!
Usually, mine are in the form of things I wrote on the blackboard as notes for the students during class and without a photo, I won’t remember what I told them.
One of the reasons I decided to reactivate and use Flickr for this project is that Flickr allows you to include all the camera info for each photo. When you look at the photo on its own page, off to the right is a small panel with f/stop, ISO, focal length, and so on.
Like I said on Instagram, I know they’re not Tripods. I don’t care.