My process of self deconstruction as a photographer continues. I’ve just returned from a two week vacation, on which I did not take a camera. Admittedly it was basically 2 weeks on beaches in the south of France, but still, that did include several days in the Camargue and a 5 days in St Tropez, both places I’ve roamed with a camera in the past. This time, I just didn’t feel like it.

The Camargue, some years ago

Taking a camera seemed more like pain than pleasure. Having the camera (and associated paraphanalia) or indeed cameras, plural, would mean that I would constantly be looking for opportunities to use them, rather than just relax and let the world go by. I would not avoid stupidly taking a camera to the restaurant, “just in case”, and then having it hanging awkwardly off my shoulder all night.

Also the Camargue, also some years ago

Of course it was hard letting go. Several times before leaving, I nearly lost my resolve. Indeed I even indulged in some tradition pre-vacation GAS, buying a new shoulder bag. It’s just over there, on the couch, with the sales tags still attached. Maybe it will come in handy one day. 

Still the Camargue, not this year

But, I told myself, I’ve already got all the photos of St Tropez I’ll ever need. Les Saintes Marie De La Mer is actually not all that photogenic (really, it isn’t), and I’ve also got stacks of photos of the Camargue I haven’t even looked at properly. Any photos I would take would anyway be for an audience of precisely 1, so why bother.

For the first few hours, on the drive to France, I was practically in a state of panic, but pretty soon I got over it. I didn’t miss having a camera, in fact it was a genuinely liberating experience. Actually just before leaving I bought a new iPhone mini, but I didn’t even take that. I decided to wait until I returned to migrate from my old, battered and stumbling iPhone SE.

Saint Tropez, some years ago

Fresh from this experience I’m just starting to feel a little more positive about photography, although I still haven’t discovered any purpose to it.

Leave your camera at home - you’ll see the world through new eyes.

I visited Svalbard with a small group of friends back in 2010. I took along with me a camera for which I have few fond memories, the Olympus E-3. Even though this travelled all around the world with me, North to South, I never really developed much of a relationship with it. It may actually have been defective, certainly the sensor cleaning was very ineffective. It’s predecessor (Olympus E-1) was far nicer to use, and its successor (E-5) far better even if physically near identical. But anyway, the best camera is the one you have with you, so it is what it is.

The photos are a mere 10 Megapixels, but that’s good enough for screen and small prints. Actually I have a Super-A3 print hanging above my desk, and it certainly doesn’t lack resolution. Re-visting and reprocessing everything in Capture One allows me to get closer to the look I prefer than in Lightroom, thanks to the stronger separation Capture One allows between contrast and saturation (Photoshop allows the same control, but I’m too lazy to go there these days).

I’ve completely refreshed my Svalbard gallery with a new set of 18 photos drawn from 570 re-edits. On any given day I’d probably come up with a different set, it just depends on my mood.

Speaking of which, the photo below pretty much conveys my current state of mind.

There’s a strong chance that this will be my last real post on this blog. I don’t have much left to say, and even if I did, it would be 20 years too late. I’ve also reached a point where what remains of my dwindling interest in my own photography lies in exploring and excavating my archive. At the moment I have really no interest in taking any more photos.

I’ve just published a new photo gallery, “Madeira: Levadas”. This one has been a long time coming. I’ve reprocessed all the photos at least twice, in different applications. This final selection comes from Capture One, and some of the photos benefit from the new ProStandard profile for Olympus E-M1 Mk II, which makes a noticeable positive difference.

To quote myself:

“Madeira was a long-standing fascination for me, but I never really new why. After finally visiting for the first (and second) time in 2019, I now know. The dramatic landscape criss-crossed by epic artificial water channels - the “levadas” - hand carved out of vertical precipices and disappearing into mysterious tunnels is like no other. It isn’t easy to capture the feelings that exploring the levadas gives in a photograph, but here is my attempt so far. And Madeira has plenty more to offer. I’m amazed that it isn’t up there with Iceland as an over-exploited destination. but I’m relieved it isn’t.”

One upside of being largely unable to travel outside of my immediate area for the last 6 months is that I have been able to spend some time reviewing and refining my huge backlog of photos, trying in some way to extract a portfolio.  Although even this gets tedious at times, and finding the motivation is not always easy, I have made some progress. Largely pushed by the Lightroom v10 debacle, I have now fully transitioned (back) to Capture One and I’m finding it very rewarding. There are some workflow drawbacks, but the degree of control in Capture One is vastly superior to that in Lightroom. This does mean that I have to process my Hasselblad raws in Phocus, but that’s not too much of an issue.

I’m also doing a lot of printing, concentrating on some specific photos.  The one presented here has been at the back of my mind for some time. As far as I’m concerned this is a 5 star photo. It shows the forest wall rising above a waterfall a little about the source of the Levada do Rei in Madeira.

The scale is perhaps not easy to understanding from this photo. It was taken from quite a high perspective, at 30mm equivalent focal length. Everything in the picture is bigger than it looks. It is easier to understand on a print, and I’ve printed this at A2 size.  I believe it is due to a slight lack of depth perception which comes from the micro Four Thirds sensor.  It was actually from my two trips to Madeira in 2019 that I started to find I was hitting the limits of m43, not only from this depth perception issue, but also in terms of far distance definition, and of dynamic range. This led me eventually to the Hasselblad X system as a complementary system.

Still, I enjoy this photo very much, and the Olympus E-M1MkII and 12-100 lens enabled me to take it. The Levada do Rei is quite an easy hike, but others are less so (the terrifying - but beautiful -  Levada do Norte for example), and I’m not sure even now if I’d take the Hasselblad system on such a trek.

I have just about finished reprocessing around 450 selected photos from last January in Antarctica (out of over 6000). I’m still unable to see the wood for trees, so I don’t really know if there are any genuinely good photos in there, but at least I am moving in the direction of more ruthless culling. Ultimately I want to try to narrow down the fruits of 5 visits to Antarctica down to a very small set. 

During the last visit, I finally got to see some orcas. And not just in the distance, and not just one or two. The ship was surrounded by a curious pod for some hours, swimming around, under and close to over us until they got bored and wandered off to look for some penguins to massacre.

Of course at this time it was all cameras blazing, while getting elbowed aside by the more dedicated wildlife photographers (everybody except me). I didn’t really get any good shots, not helped by my aversion to using continuous shooting, or failing to learn how to use the very clever Pro Capture mode of my Olympus camera.

So of course I was disappointed, I felt I’d missed the chance of a lifetime, I’m a hopeless photographer, woe is me, etc etc etc.

About the best photo I got. Poor timing and poor focus”

But wait a minute…  Orcas! I’ve seen orcas! I’ve seen wild mother and calf orcas up close, but really close! In the Antarctic!  So, why on earth do I value that experience by the number or quality of photos I made?

As photographers we need to step back sometimes and take in the wider view. Sure, we want to make good photos, but it’s pretty sad if we let the quality of our photos dictate our enjoyment of life.

Once both the orcas and the wildlife photographers had wandered off for penguins / coffee and downloading their memory cards respectively, I managed to get a few more environmental shots that I’m a bit happier with.

Of course it would have been nice to grab a prize-winning photo at the same time…