11.02.19

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These photos come from my Canon, My Nikon and finally my Panasonic D90 Canon Compact Camera – Tailings Pond in Yukon Canada. 2015 Nikon D90 – Sunset in Istanbul - 2013 Panasonic G80 – “The Snow Road” Cairngorms - 2019

Old Dogs & New Tricks.

The New trick is photography and the old dog in question is me.

I’ve always had an interest in photography, working on 35mm in college was problematic but its where it started. The problem for me on Black & White 35mm was that it took too long from taking the photo to developing it and trying to learn from my mistakes.

The problem was remembering what I had done on each photo that made it work and what made it fail.

The main thing I remember from those times were Iris settings, big number little hole, little number big hole. Which I suppose isn’t a bad thing to recall after all.
The time that photography and trying to become something more than a “Point and Shoot”, “Auto Guy” was the advent of digital.
It meant that you take a couple of shots and immediately see what you set in the camera effecting the image you captured.

The first “half decent” digital camera was a little canon compact camera.
I tried to use it as much on manual as possible to teach myself what was happening in the camera. But I soon grew out of that one as the manual settings and the overall image quality didn’t go to where I needed it to go.

From the Canon I moved on to a Nikon D90, bought second hand from a cameraman I’d worked with for years.
This was a great camera and certainly a step in the right direction. It was a DSLR so had a bit of weight about it and felt solid when you were shooting on a longer lens and the image quality was as good as I needed.

There was one problem with D90 that meant it didn’t get used as much as it should have. It’s size. It was too big to have in or on my mixer bag. Meaning that every time I went to work it was a mission to have it with me. That meant that it got left behind, that meant it became an afterthought, that meant when I did think to use it the batteries were invariably flat, that meant I’d end up shooting any photos on my phone.

Then Micro 4/3 cameras came along. I’ve part exchanged the Nikon for a Panasonic Lumix G80. Like the D90 it’s got interchangeable lenses which means no reliance on digital zooms and the drop off in quality, it’s just big enough to get a proper hold of for long lens or low light situations but small enough to be clipped on the side of my mixer.

So, the new Tricks thing is going to become what? A side hustle? Another revenue stream? A plain and simple creative outlet? Who knows?

Yes, it’s something that can be offered to people I’m working with on different projects, having someone there on location that might have a moment to stand and grab some production stills, some reportage portraits of the contributors or cast or be part of the documenting process when everyone else is deep in conversation about what we are doing next or getting shots of people engrossed in what the “Big Camera” is doing, but it is be another string to my bow. An added value to having me on a job as opposed to someone else.

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