Its 1994, I'm still doing music photography, and I've got a camera bag that most never got close to having during those days.
I worked hard to get all of that, including doing things like buying an old, battered Canon 85/1.2 L used by press photographers. Yet something is wrong...
This is the sort of photography I was doing, this is straight out of the scanner, no edits at all. It should be Neopan 400 in 1:1 D76, using a Canon F1n with 135/2.0, manual focus of course.
But now all my exposures are off... And that is even with a very accurate T-90 and a checked F1n that came from Canon itself!
I do some testing in my room, which leads to the discovery that the aperture scale itself is off! It simply does not transfer to the camera the values it should, its up to 1.5 stops off!
This image is of a fellow photographer testing the first M9 arriving, years later.
What I did back then was to hop on the train, spend 12 hours one way, dump all my gear for far less than I could have gotten selling it over time, and then buy an old Leica M2.
Cameras like that were still kinda used by at least some pros! So there was a lot to chose from. Finally I had taken the step I had been pondering, towards real simplicity.
So what does this have to do with cats?? Well, they are my models, of course!
But maybe there is something else, I really admire their way of existing, they do think about the future, choices and how to survive to be happy as we do, yet they are also much more natural in these things.
Late in 94 I then took that Leica along on a pilgrimage to India. I did the same as I do now, I spent weeks thinking through what to bring, slimming down hard, and I also made my own, very rough looking rucksack out old postal bags.
Of course I had by then acquired an even more expensive setup, the whole series of 35-50-90 Summicrons. Yet in the end I packed 12 kg in total only, taking along the M2 with the 50mm, a lot of rolls & a Sekonic light meter.
So that is why this sunset is as it is, I had to use that 50mm. Maybe the end result was even better for that reason?
And what the hell am I doing now, 3 decades later???
Well, the great thing is that I'm finally doing what I always wanted to do here on Hive, which is write text that fits with my photography. Not the other way around, I can do that as a job, but for me it all starts with interesting images really.
What creates compelling, interesting images? I think that including randomness in the process can really help with that, along with knowing one's gear very well.
So I introduced some randomness by playing around with that big Sony, just grabbing it as it was lying there with that 20mm mounted. And then of course it started misfiring, probably from the moist weather...
It even locked itself so that I could not focus even manually... This sort of thing would have made me drop it all in disgust as I did back then in 94, but maybe I've also learnt something during these years haha...
Yet I got some of these images before the last light faded, I like this sort of classic cat pose that Charcoal did.
She is such an interesting, complex and funny cat :-) Always jumpy, but ultimately trusting me, especially now that she has 3 new kittens with me in my room...
I really do not want to leave them... But I need to even if I could make a living online full time, I'm actually quite close to that here on Hive. All I need to do is to ramp that up, and use my content here to brutally make some inroads into the fiat world again haha...
But for different reasons I need to hit the road, so I will.
The X-Pro1 with 35/1.4 and the Ordro M5
I know that this is all I need... The Fujifilm X-Pro1 with the original 35/1.4 is still one of the best pieces of gear that I've ever come across, its the only thing I took along on the trip to Saigon that I'm still posting from.
Also I know for sure that video is what works, anyone not doing some form of video content simply won't have anything close to the reach that the could have.
Which again actually is tied to me needing to hit the road...
So these are the things I'm thinking of and trying out mentally here on a rainy and windy Sunday, while my cats assist me in the ways they can :-)
If I could have sold almost all of it for decent prices I would have done that, so that I can extend the trip. But that is not so feasible. It will be a compromise, and it will all be geared towards producing content, that much is for sure!
And now I've also written close to a thousand words about this!
So thanks everyone here on Hive, to have a platform where reflections like these will get at least some views is really something. Especially since its way easier to follow through with my own plans once I've written about it 😁
Hope ya'll have a great Sunday!
