I wrote this in the On Taking Pictures Podcast Google+ group but I thought I’d repost it here.
For the past four weeks we’ve been in China, visiting my wife’s extended family out in Hangzhou, crashing at great-grandma’s one bedroom pad doing a show and tell of our toddler. When I get around to culling my images I’ll post a gallery of pictures, but here were some photography thoughts I didn’t want to lose before I go back to work in a couple days..
1) As noted in previous posts, I brought my Nikon D40, 24mm f2, 105mm f2.5 MF lenses and the 35mm f1.8 AF lens. And my iphone. The iphone won the day. Of the 3800 images I took, only 800 of them were from the slr (and yes, I really need to get much better about being selective before pressing the button). Even though the D40 is a small SLR, the extra hassle of pulling it out when trying to wrangle a toddler made infrequently used… or by the end trip, left at home. Also, for low light and non-artsy photos the extra DOF from these mini-sensors is a huge plus. (remember when minimal DOF was all the rage?)
2) And speaking of traveling with an iphone. A couple days before leaving I woke up and realized that I need to swallow my pride and buy a selfie stick. I had seen some folks use it with great fluidity and skill and the cheap ones selling for only 10 RMB ($1.50). And wow, what a really handy tool — not just for shooting pictures of yourself — and I had quite a bit of fun with it the last couple days, as you can see in the picture. It was also awesome at getting some views and angles you wouldn’t get otherwise. And even for photos which you could take normally, sometimes the extra stick helps you stablize the camera which is never a bad thing. But you do look utterly ridiculous like a fool.
3) Weather. It rained pretty much the whole trip – completely nonstop for the first couple weeks with a few days of sun in the last couple weeks. If I was a dedicated photographer, It would have been a great opportunity to get out and not worry about high contrast dynamic range. But unfortunately it just ended up being dreary and we were kind of cooped up at home. But then again, the goal of the trip was kicking it with great grandma and the toddler…so risking getting sick was out of the question.
4) It also snowed (very lightly) the last night before we left Hangzhou to head back home. It was very pretty and super cool since my daughter had never seen snow before. And I realized why I would never want to be a landscape photographer. God it was miserable outside. But I’m certain its moments like these when all the super pretty pics get made, but I ain’t gonna be out there.
5) As you might have noticed from the comments above I am unabashedly a CJ Chilver (a lesser photographer) fan. I think his thoughts are a really great way to frame the photography hobby for someone like me who enjoys the aesthetic challenge as an amateur, especially one focused on one’s own life and family as their primary subject.
6) Software. Apple Photo is just mediocre.And the whole icloud backup thing is a complete trainwreck. I wanted to have some selects posted in the cloud just in case if something went haywire but wow apple makes it confusing. I think I ended up just backing everything up to the 5gig free limit. (oh and WTF happened to G+? I come back and they’ve messed everything around, and not for the better.)
7) Hardware (Metaphorically speaking) We had previously made a photobook of the Baby’s 1.5 years via Blurb. It was one of the best things we did in preparation for the trip. It got read by everyone that visited by grandma. If you haven’t taken some of your digital shots and turned them into something you can hold, then stop surfing the interwebs and go make a book.
8) This was our first trip with the baby. I’ve always been a Jeffery style of traveler. For me its all about slowing down to smell the roses in a new environment. But wow. When you got a precocious toddler, things go even more slowly, days start late, and end early and you certainly don’t cover half the ground that you used to handle. It was totally cool, but totally different. If you vacation at Bill’s speed, make sure you hit your bucket list before you make a little one.
