Well, we are back safe and sound from our recent trip to Shetland. People have asked us what takes us there, it is many things. It’s a place that hasn’t been overrun by tourists so far. There have been places made popular by social media and suffered for it in my opinion. For one, I’m thinking of the American Southwest. If you have ever been there, you will understand the negative impact that has been experienced. Shetland is so full of peace, that does it for me. Even in the town of Lerwick, you don’t feel overwhelmed by crowds. This trip we did feel the pain of having our bags lost for the first time. This combined with cold and extremely windy conditions made for a bumpy start of our trip but eventually our bags arrived and we were able to get out and active. We walked a lot, we ventured to some new places from our first trip too. I have changed so much in my photography, I no longer overshoot. I’m more deliberate, finding compositions and sticking with it, quality over quantity sort of thing. We did have to deal with a good amount of completely overcast skies and a couple of times we were even hiking in the rain but I would rather have this than clear blue skies.
Photo of the Week # 241
My wife and I just returned from the UK once again, Shetland to be exact. I’ll show some photos from there soon but I wanted to post a couple from St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh today. This place is mind-blowing in it’s details. Dating back to the late medieval period, it is just loaded with history. Being on the Royal Mile, it is understandably busy and extremely hard to shoot. I decided to concentrate more on the higher details to avoid all the people.
Photo of the Week #239
A puffin having a rest on the cliff. Look so forward to returning to Shetland. One of the highlights of the last trip was our first time seeing puffins. What cute little guys!
Photo of the Week # 223
A photographer I follow on YouTube has an interesting approach on new gear. He doesn’t push the newest and most expensive gear at you, nor does he even condone you buying it. He is a high end commercial photographer yet he uses equipment that most of us consider obsolete. Why? Because it does the job well and it is inexpensive.
I recently observed a conversation in a Facebook group where a person asked opinions regarding a quite high end PC he was considering for photo editing. He immediately began getting bombarded with opinions on why he should buy MAC and not that PC.
I’m so tired of the whole scene, I’m tired of the snobbery among photographers. I do follow YouTube photographers as I love to learn the craft but honestly, it’s like watching commercials for new and gear that I can’t afford and frankly, don’t need. They can’t even talk about their camera without rhyming off the brand and model of it.
In the real world, not all of us can afford the newest and greatest gear and that’s fine because it’s the photographer not the camera, right? I don’t have one of the new mirrorless bodies and to tell you the truth, I doubt I ever will. Picture quality hasn’t improved really, it’s mostly features that have changed and mostly to do with video, which I don’t do.
Another interesting observation Scott (Tin House Studio) made a point of the fact that if he troubles himself too much with the technical aspect of photography, it can kill the creative part of the job which is what he gets paid for in the first place. I immediately thought of myself as I worry far too much about the technical aspect and not enough about the creativity part.
