My slumps occur every winter: photography is about light, and artifical light leaves to be desired.
Since about 2017, I gave up Lightroom (except for indexing & archiving) and do quick edits in Capture NX-D, mostly minor exposure corrections and some re-framing & cropping. Editing is as essential as ever, but the editing means are minimal, as I try to get the shot right. The number of shots also decreased from 30 000 per year to less than 8 000.
These last few years, my trips were preceded by a careful lens selection. Recent choices:
- Tamron 45/1.8, Nikkor 50/2 AI, Nikkor 105/2.5 AI (Northern Portugal)
- Nikkor 24/3.5 PC-E, Zeiss MP 50/2 ZF2, Nikkor 105/2.5 AIS (Iceland)
and then came the tendency "less is more", e.g.
- Zeiss 35/2, Nikkor 105/2.5 AI (Vienna)
- Nikkor 28/2 AI, Voigt 58/1.4 (ditto)
- Voigt 40/2, Nikkor 105/2.5 (Bucarest)
- Nikkor 50/2 and 105/2.5 (Milano)
and ultimately
- Voigt 58/1.4 when I want to travel light.
The lens choice is not innocent. The less I intend to shoot, the lighter I go. More often than none, the Df stays in the bag or hotel room. There is no reason to shoot for shooting sake, as I do not make a living out of shots.
Most of my trips being short business trips, the camera is not an obstacle to liaising with people; it is a way not to travel alone (I've been carrying that Df every second day at least since I bought it, back in 2014). I'm rather shy and not spontaneously addressing strangers. In some cases the gear (or the shooting activity itself) triggered conversations with people hostile (an American brat in Tokyo), or disturbed then interested (two elderly guys in Brussels), nerds (one guy in Düsseldorf)... interesting memories.
Each photographer his zen - in my case, with repeating commuting trips, it is "what's there that I overlooked for six years but will see this time". When I stop commuting, as is now the case (very temporarily so), the next question is "what's there in this lens that makes it unique".
Other reasons for shooting? well, events such as political or social events on the streets. I some cases I demonstrated with other people, and that's the best way to participate, but in most cases I was an interested bystander, in which case photography is a good way to "establish contact". Never experienced any incident.
Then, concert or ballet performance. I am no longer doing a lot. There is, de facto, a certain competition going on here (as pics are welcome ad material), and I am not interested in the petty "A against B" game of photographers trying to get exclusivity. Nowadays I prefer to get called to fill a gap, or to cover an event nobody was primarily interested in. Besides, there is the dangerous slope of subject becoming muses.
Now I am getting older, Madame is lagging behind by quite a few years but following the same path, and the subject is "how to shoot pictures of her that she will like although they are realistic and not photoshopped". Now that's a real challenge, and not the kind that will wear off that easily. Any acceptable pic is a victory. Three pics in a row, it's like climbing the Everest. If I get successful, I'll hold a workshop and invite you all.
Meanwhile, I'm preparing a trip to Brittany, centered on the four historic bishoprics (Vannes, Quimper, St Paul de Léon, Tréguier) that happen to also define, very roughly, the linguistic regions. Wait... hmmm... probably 28/2 (or 28/3.5 PC? or Zeiss 25/2, but I am less at ease when it gets that wide), 50/2 (or 58/1.4?), and Elmar 180/4 which is nearly pocketable: a nice addition to the inventory. But it may just be the 50 or 58, which proved worthy shooting Madame in the past. And using the Df, what else...
