Keeping a record of the strangest time in my life.

It’s an absolutely bizarre time to be alive. We’ve done pretty much 2 full years of pandemic living now and things have not really gotten more stable.

After all the lockdowns and so much time keeping cases low, the floodgates have basically opened and numbers have sky rocketed.

To make things even more interesting, I have a heavily pregnant wife and two very important very vulnerable relatives in my grandparents. I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy and keep those around me healthy, but it feels like an inevitability that I’ll get sick in the next few weeks.

I’ve missed seeing the oldies so much, it’s heart breaking to speak to them on the phone and have them not quite understand my need to keep away from them. I have breakfast with them virtually every Saturday morning and I know they’ve really missed having me pop in over the last few weeks.

This morning I caved and spent some socially distanced time sitting in the backyard with them. It fills up my cup so much just to be in their presence and I know the visits have the same effect on them.

Gem is doing well too, she’s getting so big. I’ve never in my life seen a belly that round and beautiful.

She’s been swimming at the beach almost every day for exercise and just general mental health reasons and it’s been so so good for her.

Everything in between.

Without realising I’ve been shooting to extremes for the longest time. It feels like if you have an expensive Sony GM f/2.8 lens, you should be shooting it at f/2.8. My 85mm prime seems wasted if not photographed wide open.

While I’m out shooting properties on a tripod on a bright sunny day I’m often all the way at the other end of the spectrum to cut light and get everything in focus.

For the last 4 years, the rest of the gamut honestly may as well not exist.

In my daily walks with the x100v I’ve been thinking about this more. It started as problem solving, the leaf shutter inside the camera has a funny quirk where at f/2 after about 1/4000th it can’t quite close fast enough. The image is absolutely fine but the bokeh starts to look a little weird - kind of like motion blur.

Anyway, just to get the exposure I want and avoid this problem, I’ve been shooting at f/3.5-5.6

And it’s great. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact it’s better in some ways as when you stop down a couple of times the lens actually starts to get sharper.

Anyway I realise now that unless you’re shooting dreamy close up portraits, for most reasons you don’t need the maximum possible bokeh.

As an added bonus, you will also be missing focus less. It’s very forgiving.

A camera that makes you walk more.

Shooting my little x100v every day has made me go outside a bit more. It’s funny how all the little knots and tangles in your mind seem to untie when out for a walk. As hard as it is, I try and leave my wallet, phone and airpods at home.

I’ve been walking mostly in silence. The tendency is usually for me to have something playing in my ears. It feels uncomfortable in fact - or like I’m wasting precious time to not be getting through my audiobook or catching up on this week’s podcasts.

But there’s something quite beautiful about just being okay listening to the sound of your own thoughts. After the first few minutes you don’t even realise you’re doing it. Once your legs start to move, so does your mind.

In the 1600s, French philosopher Blaise Pascal said:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”.

And ain’t that just the damn truth.

I shoot jpeg now.

If you’ve known me for a while you’ve probably heard me bang on about the x100 series cameras from fuji. I’ve regretted selling my x100s for like the last 6 years.

Anyway, I bit the bullet and finally got my hands on the latest model in the series.

The thing I’m most excited about is the colours that come straight off the sensor from this bad boy.

To be able to dial in the look I want with film simulations and just upload jpegs straight from the camera makes me excited to no end. It takes all the annoying parts out of being a photographer and lets you focus on only the good bit - making cool photos.

So I imagine a lot of the photos that will end up on here will just be little in between moments of life that wouldn’t normally make the highlight reel.

And I can wait.

Because inevitably when you look back on your life or go through your mum and dad’s photo albums, it’s not the dolled up, super posed cheesy smiling pics that are the most fun to look at. It’s the little fragments of actual life - a shot that takes you to an actual place and moment in the history of you or your family.

“Hey wow, look at what our kitchen used to look like”

“I can’t believe I used to wear those pants”

“That was before we had kids”

As photographers, it is annoying sometimes to shoot on days off, or holidays and long weekend.

But it is our privilege and our honour to be filling the albums and preserving the memories of our loved ones.

A stream of consciousness.

For much of the last year, I’ve kept up a daily journaling practice. It’s been really helpful, just to help take all of the mental clutter from my head and stick it on a bit of paper.

This year, I think this blog could be the photography equivalent for me. A visual journal, without pressure or expectation. Somewhere for photos and thoughts and a place that I can look back on to see the progression of my work and life.

There’s something so appealing to me about a fresh start - the excitement of a new project.

And conversely there’s something so disappointing about someone not following through with the things they say they are going to do.

So on that note, here are my resolutions for 2022.

To be someone who does the things they say they are going to do.

And to leave everything better than I found it.