Photography vs. Writing

This is mostly about photography, not much about writing. 

I’ve always taken pictures on trips, when I found things worth shooting. I have ten thousand pictures posted at http://gryphontravel.shutterfly.com, and I post more in batches after each trip or so. I have traditionally used the best point-and-shoot cameras I could find and done zero work in photoshop. Post-production has been limited to orienting photos as portrait rather than landscape, when I notice it’s needed, in the rare cases where I’ve taken sideways shots. I avoid it because that’s too much post-production for me.

After a fishing trip on which I took pictures of wildlife more than I fished, I upgraded to a camera on which I could change out lenses. I hadn’t been able to zoom as far as I needed to, or frame shots well enough, and wanted to upgrade. I wanted the Sony NEX-7 but it wasn’t being shipped due to meltdowns or earthquakes or something in Japan.

So I got the Nikon 1 V1 instead. When I went to central Europe over the new year, I took the V1 and the results were pretty good. I also acquired a Leica D-Lux 5 while I was there, which is an excellent-quality (though low-resolution) point-and-shoot. I found myself using it a lot for its low-light capabilities and creamy yellow coloring in available-light shots (I almost never use a flash).

When I returned from Europe, I left the V1 sitting for a month or more on my table here and then when I tried to start it up, I found the viewscreen wasn’t working. I had to have it sent back to Nikon, which took a month and annoyed the hell out of me since it was a new camera. Partly as a result of this and partly because I now realized that the sensor is too small, and the resolution too low, I decided to upgrade to a real semi-pro DSLR. I probably shouldn’t have tried to get what I needed out of an intermediate camera anyway. Guess I’ll sell it.

After much research I decided on the Nikon D800 or the Canon EOS 5D Mark 3. I was leaning toward the Canon due to the problem I’d just had with the Nikon 1 V1, and since I’ve been happy with Canon point-and-shoots over the last several years since I stopped buying Sony products due to terrible service. But the Nikon D800 had won in the court of internet reviews, and I decided to go for it. Except, I couldn’t get one, since it was backordered worldwide.

Due to the surprising quality of the Leica D-Lux 5, I decided to also look into higher-end Leicas. I found out that the M9-P and its lenses are collectible and therefore resellable, in the case of the lenses, even scalpable for more money, though I’m not so into that. So I decided against my better (cheaper) judgment to get one of those too, though I could only find one lens at first. I figured I’d just sell it if I didn’t find out it was phenomenal. It arrived just before I left on the recent trip.

Setting out on that trip, I planned to beg at camera shops in different cities in case they had a D800 that had just come in and not been allocated to a customer yet. In a stroke of extreme luck, I got one on the first try. So now I had two real cameras, half of the US to shoot, and very little knowledge about manual-mode photography. I spent a lot of time learning about this stuff and took a decent number of decent pictures in the process, including attempting some full-auto, manual-focus, manual-shutter-speed pictures of interesting lightning near the border of Georgia and Florida. I also seeked out Leica M-system lenses in various stores in various cities in various southern states; they are very rare and hard to find, and I figured I was traveling anyway so I might as well have a quest.

One thing I learned was that you have to have your mind in the right state and your camera ready to go in order to catch some interesting shots. I took to wearing the Leica M9-P around my neck near-constantly since it’s so much smaller, and using the Nikon D800 for anything requiring zoom, distance or tricky focus. I haven’t really studied the results yet but I’ll bet both cameras performed fantastically.

Sadly, I found it hard to be in both photo mindset and writing mindset. I find that to write a lot, I have to be in a frame of mind where it’s not just the most important thing I’m concerned with, but rather, the only thing. I have to learn to balance it a little, because I need to be able to do other things and not lose the aggressive write-every-day mindset that it takes to finish a novel. Maybe it will be better now that I have (a little) less to learn about photography.

It had better be better, because the next road trip is less than 3 weeks away, and I want to complete my first draft before I leave.