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End of 2020, or Why I do Photography
Photography has always been intriguing to me. From the breathtaking vistas of the western United States captured in glorious detail to the candid and intimate nature of Henri Cartier-Bresson, from the gorgeous modern landscapes with long-shutter dreamy looks to the quick snaps and hard edges of a proud parent snapping a flash photo of a child on a birthday, the idea of capturing a moment and creating something more of it has had an allure that not many other artistic endeavors have had for me.
When I was 18 I found myself with a whole host of newfound privileges of adulthood, one of which was the access to credit cards. While not the wisest thing to do, I decided to use credit to buy my first real camera, a Canon point-and-shoot that I purchased based on internet reviews praising the inclusion of a fully manual mode. While this camera wasn’t great, it did allow me to dip my toes into photography with access to full manual settings.
From a Canon point-and-shoot I then graduated to my first big boy camera: A Canon T3 DSLR. This was it, I finally had a real camera that had an interchangeable lens system and everything! Soon after I bought the venerable 50mm f1.8 II, and this combination served me well from 2010 until about a year ago when I dove head first into mirrorless systems.
A brief side track. I am a musician and a tradesman. I earned my living for about 5 years building custom guitars. One of the biggest pitfalls in internet guitar communities is the temptation and encouragement towards obsessive consumption of new pieces of gear, colloquially referred to as GAS or Gear Acquisition Syndrome. A condition realizes they’ve contracted when one realizes that they just spent the last 3 hours listening to soundclips and reading reviews, trying to divine the sonic difference between different makes and models of pickups, strings, picks, pedals, amps, guitars, etc. One thing I pride myself on as a guitar player is being able to mostly reign in my tendency for gear acquisition syndrome. The whole point of bringing this up is the heavy parallel it runs to the photography world and the countless hours we can spend watching youtube reviews of different camera bodies and lenses, speedlights, LED panels, etc. and how similar it was to internet guitarist communities.
With that similarity laid out, I take much pride in being able to have kept my photography hobby reigned in, shooting for nearly a decade on what is essentially an entry level camera and an entry level prime 50mm, my trusty Canon T3 and 50mm f1.8 II. This equipment relationship lasted until about a year ago when I purchased an Olympus O-MD E-M10 Mark III refurbished on Ebay for a very reasonable price.
The whole point of purchasing the Olympus was that it was effectively the cheapest entry point into the world of mirrorless, and the functional appeal of getting into a mirrorless system had almost nothing to do with all of the general “benefits” listed out in myriad photography and gear articles. It wasn’t the compact size that did it for me, at least not directly. It wasn’t really any increase in image quality (although modern sensors and going from 12mp to 16mp seemed like a good thing to do). It was rather the shorter flange distance that allowed for lens adaptation. I happened across some videos about lens adaptation at random and I was instantly interested. I love photography, I love mechanical devices and the rudimentary, brute tactility they offer. How could I resist?
So armed with my new Olympus camera I proceeded to go out to a local antiques store and bought a bag full of Mamiya lenses that had been sitting in a dusty corner undisturbed for years and got to work researching what I needed to do to get started. Turns out the Mamiya 35mm bayonet isn’t a common lens, and after emailing a couple lens adapter companies I realized I was sore out of luck for off-the-shelf adapting. What I did find were some resources listing out the flange focal distance lists, and realized that a Canon EF adapter was just a bit shorter than the adapter I would need for the Mamiya lenses so I ordered one up. I then cut out a stainless steel flange and some shims on the laser cutter at the factory I work at and presto, I had a modern digital camera with Mamiya lenses for less than the price of other comparable mirrorless systems.
Then the global pandemic happened. Any sort of photography I was going to do would have to be socially distant, and what’s more socially distant than nature photography and landscapes? I got to work trying to hone out a style with my growing collection of medium wide and standard view vintage lenses. Some of them with wide open apertures and creamy background blur, some with unique swirling characteristics and others with tack sharp acuity.
This year has taught me a lot, but not in necessarily concrete or solidified or easily expressed ideas. It’s been an instructive year of photography for me. Doing detail photography sometimes feels rudderless, looking for something to make into an artful image, isolating and crystalizing one subject in one frozen moment. Making permanent the impermanent. There’s a certain beauty in it even if there isn’t a larger message. Slowing down, being forced to slow down and analyze your surroundings really helps to experience things differently. Photo walks become cathartic, almost meditative.
For all of the shit-talking in the digital age of living through the screens of our devices, the inverse is as often true. Our modern devices allow us to create and convey images and ideas that would have been too superficial or cost prohibitive in years past. Capturing the beauty of a perfectly wrinkled dead leaf hanging off a gnarled branch with just the right amount of blurred or swirled background, for me, helps me to slow my mind down and smell the proverbial roses. Going for a quick walk in the pandemic to get in some exercise and retain the tenuous grip on sanity we collectively have is quickly multiplied and amplified by training a meditative focus on capturing the simple beauty around us.
So with all the garbage that 2020 has brought us with global pandemics, unrest, protests, political rot and the constant threat of our precarious stasis being upended, photography has been something of a safety blanket. A series of momentary reprieves from the other bullshit happening in the world. Its escapism to be sure, but its constructive and creative escapism, so its positive escapism.
Written on Tuesday, 29 December 2020, by Aaron Brown. Last edited on
