Getting back to photography: too many interests, too little time…

Trying to keep current with technology, while enjoying the photographic process

To be clear, I have been making photographs, well, digital exposures anyway. Mostly I’ve been making photographs as part of adventures and excursions. What I haven’t been doing is photographing for the sake of art and photography. And certainly not producing prints. Compounding the matter is the fact I’ve also ignored, or not been good about keeping up with editing, post processing, image backups, refreshing my website, remaining familiar with the tools I use, such as trying to figure out why Photoshop won’t drop the image back into Lightroom automatically any longer, where did my printer profiles disappear to?

Over the past few weeks I’ve been playing a little catch up, and this past weekend, as much as I wanted to go hiking to capture fall colors, the weather was not promising. Needless to say, it was a good opportunity to catch up on further file management and some printing. The second Monday of every month I meet with a couple photography friends to share prints and talk about photography, and pretty much anything. I had not printed seriously in a few months really. In fact, my Epson Sure Color P800 printer sits idle way too much. Fortunately, it’s an amazing machine and picks up right where it leaves off. The P800 has been updated to the Epson Sure Color P900.

About a month ago, after returning from the John Muir Trail hike, I connected with a friend in Seattle. I was wanting to visit the camera store, Glaziers, and look at a camera. And we hadn’t gotten together since before the pandemic. I ended up selling off my Nikon DSLR camera and lenses and jumped over to a Canon mirrorless. I also shoot Olympus micro four-thirds, but it is more of my camera for hiking/backpacking and when I want a smaller form factor. It does struggle in some situations and the image clarity is not always on par with expectations. I am liking what Canon is producing. Sony has pushed the mirrorless market and Nikon and Canon are finally producing a good line. I didn’t want a Sony due to their menu system. And I really liked what Canon is doing. Needless to say, a trip to Glaziers was not inexpensive, but I’m really liking the new Canon. Canon also has and continues to develop a great line-up of lenses. Both Nikon and Sony are too, but I found the Canon R mirrorless lens options to be more extensive. And it seems every time I check used gear on Craigslist, there is just so many more options with Canon glass. I can adapt the RF mount to the older EF mount. Glaziers also had a Fall sale going on and my friend wanted to look at tripods. He didn’t end up getting one.

After Glaziers, we went over to Sammy’s Tavern, just a couple blocks away, to grab some food and refreshments. It was an opportunity to put some charge into my new camera battery, and chat. I got some charge in the battery to use the new Canon R5. Sammy’s Tavern was packed, low on staff, so we once we finished with our drinks, we left to find food elsewhere. Before leaving Sammy’s, I couldn’t help but notice this drink (photo below). Wow! Now that’s Bloody Mary! Full meal deal!

After Sammy’s we headed over to the Seattle Farmer’s Market to find food and see if we could find any good photographic opportunities. On the way, it began pouring rain so we ducked into a Kabab shop (Al Basha Mediterranean Grill on 1st Street), where we enjoyed some Kabab’s. Chicken for me, Lamb for Mike. It was quite tasty, but the spices didn’t agree 100% with my gut. It did make a fantastic photograph, however 🙂

Using a new camera, an unfamiliar one at that, right out of the box is not recommended. Trying to figure out the features on the fly. I did come away with a couple photographs I like and one of them made a nice print. Nothing super awesome, but still quite pleased.

Now a few weeks later. Getting familiar with the new camera body. Took it to Mount Rainier for some landscape shots. And a little around town. And hope to get out soon again. Meanwhile, I’m making prints. Of course, it never seems to fail that in the middle of big print job, one of the 9 ink cartridges decides to run out. But the P800 is an amazing machine, and even when it’s stopped mid print, I can swap cartridges and have it pick up right where it left off. This time, it was in between prints when I got the message – change cartridge now! Not one, but two. Another cha-ching! When I bought the printer a few years ago, I ordered a complete set of ink cartridges, so I always have a spare. The different colors use up at different rates so each time I use one or two, I order a replacement.

I print because I have found it makes me a better photographer, which many photographers agree. One sees things in a print, they don’t always notice in a digital image. I also love the tactile feel of a print. I will print a set of images from a trip, maybe a print to hang on the wall, and then prints to show to friends. We don’t critique necessarily, but use prints as conversation pieces.

I probably should have just honed in printing for this particular blog post. Or maybe just my trials and tribulations with Adobe photography software. Or just the trip to Seattle. But what fun is that. Life is sorta messy this way. A woven tapestry of events, overlapping, mingling, colliding, reflecting and refracting. I admire people who maintain a singular or at least a minimum of interests. But that’s not me. I like to dabble in a lot of things. Of course, each dabble is a separate time vortex!