Look at this photograph
Some time last year I dusted off my old camera and decided to dive back into my old photography hobby. I had an itch and that was the only thing that would scratch it. The timing was such that I immediately had the oportunity to sign up to be a volunteer photographer at a theatre festival. That was a complete crash course back into remebering how to use my camera. Since then I took my camera out for walks semi-consistently and it made me think on why I gave up this hobby in the first place.
The first big issue was SIZE. Like anyone jumping head first into a hobby I wanted the best gear I could afford. My fist camera was big, the second one even bigger. I couldn't put them in my normal bag or in my pocket. They needed their own accomodation. So I couldn't keep them with me. I even started leaving them at home on trips cause they didn't fit in what I was carrying and my phone took pictures anyway. So it was a compromise.
I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS DOING and only picking it up when there was a thing I deemed worth carrying it around for didn't help. I didn't take it out for practice shots. The first camera I had I used to use in the assisted modes. Not full auto mode but not competely manual. Then my second one didn't have a manual mode at all. Not even the assisted modes. It had programmes. Which not only didn't tell me what they did but they were not like "this is a setting that stays consitent". It jumped around like crazy, threw all the ISO it could at me. It tried to make night scenes as bright as day. I did learn to control it. I figured out how each programme wanted to make its settings, then I would point it at something at equal distance from me as my subject that was lit in such a way that the camera would do the actul setting that I wanted for the subject. Then reframe and press the button all the way down. When I photographed that theatre festival I had to either go into the "Beach" or "Snow" programmes, depending on the warmth of the light that was predominant and then position myself strategically somewhere where I saw the spotlights above the stage so I could focus on them to make the camera go "oh damn thats bright, let me adjust the settings". Otherwise the stage would look like a bright featureless ISO hellscape. I do believe that in many ways having to shoot like this forced me to learn more about photography than if I went manual and by the book. But god damn it was frustrating....and the phone does a better job at automatically lighting a scene the way I sorta want it. So again the phone was more convenient.
For a long while I took a lot of pictures with the phone. My camera collected dust unless I needed it for a gig or something. I didn't like that I didn't have optical zoom and no matter how many megapixels and extra sensors they slapped on these things the picture is still shit when enlarged and the colors are never true to the subject. But I posted my phone pictures on social media, Instagram especially. So that didn't matter so much.
It was very fun at first. I loved it. It was easy to edit it and post it straight from my phone, no more having to move pictures from one device to another. My friends saw what I posted, they would mention it in conversations or just 'like' them. But I knew they saw them and it was validation and a dopmanine hit. But then the algorithms and suprasaturation came. Posting on instagram was no longer "posting" it was "content". I got caught up in that. The spiral of wanting to be seen, and then needing a schedule, and a post strategy, and consistency, and....and...and...it was exausting. I managed it though while hashtags still mattered. At least I knew that people who wanted to see the kind of stuff I was posting got to see it. But when they took those away and it became pure algorithms I just couldn't do it anymore. Not with my photography, not with my art. Being online was strictly being a consumer or a content creator. Just posting for the love of posting has slowly died out and with it my spark.
But as I said. I had an itch. So I took out my old lumbering camera. I first had to make peace that no one will see my pictures unless we talk and I give them a link and they look at them and then it's gone. It is fine. It is actually better than them just scrolling past them for 0.5 seconds while they're on the toilet. But then, I didn't want them on Instagram anymore. If I was gonna just show them off occasionally by link like that I would rather have them on a platform that won't lock people without an account out. So I made a blog. And taking pictures for the sake of taking pictures was fun again. I eventually felt skeezy about being on googles platform so I swithched to this blog and Cara for my imagine repository. I feel great about both of these.
I was still bothered by the size and lack of settings on my camera tho. So when it eventually started to do weird shit (the zoom does a weird dance now, I think it's haunted) I set out to get something smaller but with SETTINGS.
I got a Canon SX160 IS, it has 16x optical zoom and 16 megapixels. Which is technically a downgrade from my Nikon Coolpix L340 that had 28x optical zoom and 20 megapixels. But it has SETTING. It has a MANUAL MODE. And the shutter and aperture are on a little rotating dial. AND it fits in my pocket! I love this little thing so much. Does exactly what I want it to do. I got it second hand for very cheap. I'm having a blast with it!
Look a these photographs!
I can actually take pictures of stars with this!?
