I photograph nature because I am in awe of it, I love sharing the images with others and it pays my bills so I can eat and have a roof over my head. I have been shooting for over 35 years and hope I can continue for at least another 35

A little foray into film with a Holga, Diana Mini and a 40 year old Olympus Trip 35 has convinced me that feel and emotion comes from inaccuracy and lack of focus, from the unexpected and the analogue. Whimsical pictures seem to have more “reality” in them than perfect ones – maybe that’s how our brains work – making imperfect memories that identify better with imperfect pictures?

I guess we get ourselves into the “flail around mood” most easy by playing with new equipment or going to new places. An expensive way to get the creative juice flowing but it has never failed me

Cheers,
Marco

• Mike Johnson from the on line photographer (if you don’t read his blog, you should take a look, it’s worth it) noticed to some extend a similar thing while browsing the Flikr Hive Mind (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/12/looking-for-the-photographer.html)
“…the work done with the cheaper cameras seems more interesting, less conventional. I fantasize that that’s because the cheaper cameras are being used by younger people who are newer to photography. There’s an exuberance there, a sense of real exploration. They’re pictures made by people who haven’t yet learned what you’re not supposed to take pictures of. The pictures made with very expensive cameras show a more staid, conventional, less exploratory, more technically perfectionist mindset, like a sixty-year-old driving a Ferrari cautiously. There’s a higher boredom quotient. It’s a premise that would be hard to prove, but it’s the sense I get, anyway.”

This is dead on to me. While I cannot/don’t want to force myself to forget about the technical part of photography that I leaned, my personal way to keep my pictures “fresh” is to use a compact camera (GF1) a single focal length (40mm) and to simplify the exposure to the maximum (ISO 400, the shutter speed at 1/125s or 1/60s in general) and forget about the technical part of the picture and concentrate on the composition. I did not start this exercise very long time ago so I don’t know how good it will be for my photography.

I came to this by seeing that my best pictures were made with my compact point an shoot camera while my DSLR pictures were not so good and the worse were my Nikon F100+TriX pictures. Those were bad.

• In one of the recent Image Doctor podcast (issue #100 I believe) they mentioned about Jay Maisel saying that the more gear you have with you the less imaginative you are at taking pictures.

• Last summer I toke a photography workshop with Philip Blenkinsop ( http://www.noorimages.com/index.php?id=231 ), a very strong photojournalist (word press award, Visa d’or pour l’image etc). It was a moving workshop for me. Anyway I remember that he clearly stated that
o One should know his equipment to the point to forget about it. It should become part of your body.
o And you cannot achieve this if you change your focal length all the time.
o He strongly pointed out that “you cannot achieve a coherent visual style with a zoom” (and I think he is right).
o and “a good sense of light if you change your ISO all the time”.

I’m trying to follow Philip Blenkinsop advise and Mike Johnson comment. It’s not easy because I like camera gear, they are like toy for me. I gave up on buying a D700 (but my wife is very happy about that Anyway I’ll see if my pictures improve and stay “fresh”.

Cheers,

Tregix.