Hmmm... this is the sound of deep thought... deep thought because I want to come up with the right combination of words to get this blog off the ground, to make a good first impression, and to make YOU want to read all of my photographic ramblings (and believe me, there are quite a few), but at this moment I'm coming up empty, so maybe I should start with a photo instead...
This shot of the mountains and coastline just north of Santa Barbara is about six years old now. I snapped it long before I knew anything about SLR's, or ISO, or depth of field, or bokeh, or post-processing... you get the idea. And even though this shot was made with a Sony point n' shoot, it's the most important shot I ever made, because this is the one that made me fall in love with photography.
That trip was the first time that I'd been back to Santa Barbara after graduating from UCSB three years prior. The intervening years were spent in West Philadelphia, where most of the time I was indentured at the lab bench, slowly but steadily building a graduate thesis in synthetic chemistry. During previous trips to and from Santa Barbara I'd never really noticed what a breathtakingly beautiful place it was. Sounds stupid, I know, but cut me some slack. Because I'd spent my whole life living 10 minutes from the beach in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara wasn't such a dramatic departure from my norm, but to wake up in West Philly, and then to watch the sunset in Santa Barbara, that was, at the very least, eye-opening, but it was so much more than that. It was cathartic, exhilarating, humbling, thrilling, and in many ways bittersweet.
Although I was there to be a groomsmen at a good friend's wedding, I had plenty of time to go exploring (with camera in hand), and the really amazing thing was that I saw more of Santa Barbara during that trip than I had seen during the five or so years that I spent there as a student. In part, this was because, as a student, my head had always been buried in a book, but more than that, the camera gave me an excuse to explore, with no other reason or purpose needed. The photos that I brought home were great to have, but for me the real value was the experience. The camera had gotten me out there, seeing and experiencing all of these incredible places and things.
I was hooked, line and sinker, but there was one small problem, and it was the cost. There's no two ways to slice it, photography is a really expensive hobby. Now if I'm honest, an SLR would have been possible (though just barely) on a graduate student budget, but I was living in Philly, and while I sometimes look back now and think of all the gritty street photos I could have made with some black and white film and a cheap 35mm camera, that just wasn't my shtick (and for the most part, it still isn't, but I'm gradually warming to it). My passion was landscapes, but IMHO West Philly is UGLY, and I had no car. I did take lots of travel photos though...
For a point 'n shoot, that Sony was a helluva camera - a few of these pictures are still hanging on my wall at home - but with grad school in my rearview and a couple months of decent paychecks padding my bank account, it was high time for a more serious photographic tool... I chose Nikon... more specifically, a Nikon D90.
With my D90 I now had the Honda Accord of cameras - not much character, but a capable, reliable, and reasonably priced workhorse. Two years and some months later, I still have the D90 , and still use it all the time, but I've collected a few other cameras along the way: Nikon N80, Nikon FE, Nikon N70 (scrap), Yashica Electro35 (nearly scrap), iPhone 4S, Nikon D600, and the camera that I love to hate, my Hasselblad 500C/M. I've also managed to procure a decent collection of lenses: Nikon 50mm f/1.4 (AF-D and AIS), Nikon 50mm f/1.8 (AF-D and AIS e series), Nikon 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 (graciously donated by a friend and ex-Nikon shooter), Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 (the older push-pull model), Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX (superb, and cheap!), the aforementioned Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 ultrawide (also a superb lens, though like most ultrawides it tends to flare and it does have some distortion), and the Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5. Believe it or not, the lowly N80 with the 50mm f/1.8 is my favorite combo. It's small and lightweight, simple, and has great image quality. I don't use the N70 mainly because the N80 is a much better camera, and I've never used the Yashica because, frankly, it doesn't live up to the hype (it feels cheap and the rangefinder spot is nearly invisible). The rest of my cameras and lenses tend to see regular use. All of them can make great images...
Nikon D90
Nikon N80 (Fuji Velvia 100, cheap scan)
Nikon FE (TriX 400, cheap scan)
iPhone
Hasselblad (Kodak Porta 400, cheap scan at local camera store, then B&W in Snapseed)
Nikon D600
That's it for now. I'll delve a bit deeper into all of these camera's and lenses in future posts, but ultimately I want this blog to be more about the journey, and less about the gear. Leave me some feedback to let me know what's good about this blog, and what would make this blog more interesting.
