In my last blog, I looked at music as one of the ways I am able to get what is inside of my head out into the world. Technology plays a significant role in how I am able to express myself. Let’s talk about photography. This is the last entry in this blog series.
Photography
My last photo series dates from 2021. How is that already 3 years ago? I truly adore photography. It was an unexpected love for me, which blossomed only after I got my Canon 5D MkII full frame camera. Before that, I had been much more interested in film, and when I started at the art academy in 2009 at age 33, my focus was film, even though it was a split curriculum with photography.
Though photography was becoming more and more part of the way I express myself, in the years since, it was only during my trip to Hong Kong in 2013, that I started to become aware of photography as a way to tell the type of stories I liked. Looking up at the narrow, tall buildings clustered close together long enough, started to make them look like spaceships in a convoy to me. As with film, in editing you get another chance to tell the story. This was to be one of my first (partially) conceptual photo series.
Highrises, or spaceships in a convoy? Think Battlestar Galactica.
Finding something to shoot
Since then I have told continued to tell stories with photos, looking for the abstract, the numinous, the wholly other (as I always do), as well as shooting portraits of people. But it has been a while. I haven’t shot a portrait in a long time, because I haven’t been among people (other than a handful of friends) for quite some time. I haven’t shot a new series, because I barely go anywhere. The last time I went abroad was in 2018. Come to think of it, that was also my last “real” holiday.
It’s not impossible to find something interesting to aim my lens at, here in this city, or around this city, where there’s a lot of nature, but I’ve lived here for a long time and at a certain point the attraction, wonder and curiosity diminishes. There’s some truth to “familiarity breeds contempt”, or at least boredom.
Although every time I bring my camera when I go for a walk for instance, and I actually pull it out and use it, I get sucked in and usually something interesting happens. But motivation and enthusiasm are hard to muster, to be honest.
I would love to be more deliberate in finding a new source of inspiration, something to aim my lens at. Also, getting out of the house, travel, see new things would be good, as that is a surefire way to stimulate the eye. Another challenge to set myself. I did go on a weekend away with friends, last weekend and brought my camera. As it happens, I actually took some photos, but even then, or perhaps exactly because of the setting, it was somewhat half-heartedly.
I took a couple of photos on a weekend away with friends, last week.
Making the switch
With the new computer, I was faced with the decision on whether to pay the hefty monthly subscription fee to Adobe for everything I need (not just for photography, but also for video editing), and whether I felt comfortable anymore with a company that has some very questionable business tactics.
I was curious about Affinity and, I found myself having fun editing a photo when I was testing the software, the same was true for messing around in Resolve. So I decided against Adobe and bought Affinity Photo 2 (and downloaded Resolve). There are some features missing that make Photoshop still the standard, but all in all, it does what it needs to do, and it is an absolute adequate tool to edit photos.
But of course, there is the matter of learning to work with Affinity Photo. I was very comfortable editing in Photoshop. I am starting to find my way around this new tool. It’s still a bit of a learning curve, and I don’t have a lot of time to spare, but apparently I am a quick study, and I am getting there.
As long as I’ll be able to make the process be something I enjoy, I think I’ll be alright. In any case, I have no choice, I will need to learn these tools if I want to do the things I want to do.
Technology:
- Camera
- Affinity Photo
Publishing:
- Website
Goals:
- Shoot more photos in different locations
- (Maybe) Produce a new photo series before 2025
Read the other blogs in this series:
