Another Hobby
I re-started a hobby this weekend—I’m taking up photography again. It’s been maybe five years since I purposefully shot something of interest, so there’s plenty of rust to work through. In my formative years with the craft, I was shooting the car scene: sports, exotics, and modified grocery-getters. I’m by no means a professional, nor do I think my skill is consistently above average, but I enjoyed hunting for the beautifully crafted details in anything with four wheels—I had a decent eye for it. These days my focus is switching to street and landscapes for good reason, consistency and outdoor exploration.
Day 1 — Gear & Theme
Armed with a new FujiFilm X100f, an enticing mirrorless nod to the knobby rangefinders of the film era, I’m setting out every week to develop my skills and capture moments. I’m enjoying this camera so far and love it’s mechanically inspired controls packed into a compact and sleek body—this is a work of art and craftsmanship in its own right.
We’re still experiencing consistent 100°+ degree days so I’ll be mainly wandering the city towards the start and end of the day—camping and nature subjects will start in autumn!
This week’s theme, unplanned, is “Arches”. I started pre-dawn Saturday and snoozed until about 45min before sunrise meaning I had to rush out a bit, luckily my destination wasn’t too far. Eight miles away I had planned to take some early morning shots of Pennybacker Bridge, a famous Austin landmark and a scenic vista of a rust-colored iron bridge exuding retro qualities. This was my first visit to the bridge, and I’d like to explore some other vantage points in my future visits.
So, that was my first real photography outing since buying the camera, and it was pretty uninspiring. I was frustrated with how foreign everything felt, I’ve grown accustomed to the programmed and filter-friendly experience with smartphone photography(not knocking smartphone photography, the best camera is the one you carry). I had to remind myself that I would likely be taking hundreds of photos and only deeming a single handful as worthy of processing let alone sharing—there was going to be a lot of shite before I get a grasp on the craft, and that’s okay.
Later that day, after a recovery nap (I willingly take naps now, I’m 34 years old), I decided to wander down to Bat Fest along the Towne Lake trails and watch the 1.5 million fruit bats emerge for feeding time after sunset. I recommend not attending Bat Fest proper, paying $15 to be packed onto a bridge in between mediocre music under a blistering Texas sun is not appealing. Check those bats out any day of the week for free on a less crowded bridge or on the river trails.
Motivation
My most successful shot of the day is of these paddle-boarders moving under the Lamar St. bridge. This is actually a small crop of a much larger image, and I think it works compositionally with the bridge arches anchoring the top of the image and the paddleboarders activating the shadowy waters toward the bottom.
I’m shooting/post-processing mostly in black and white because at this point I want to focus more on re-training my compositional vision with the added benefit of stark lighting and tones. Honestly, it’s easier to produce a nice feel in black and white until I develop my skills. I’ve got a long way to getting decent, and that means first I’ve got to wade through a bog of expected unprovocative contrasty images before I find true photographs.
The key to craft
Next weekend I’ll likely walk around the Eastside and capture some wall art and city life. The key is to keep going out there, shoot, learn, analyze, and share.
Cheers.