My current camera equipment;

Canon 70D

So the second in a series of Spotlights from the University of Pennsylvania, this one focusses on  Yzmykşir Fort.

The Yzmukshir Fortress, with its unique double wall fortifications, thrived in Parthian times, under various Turkic rulers, and during the Golden Horde, as an important regional trade and craft center in Khorezm.

The gates, towers, enormous moat and well-preserved 25-meter high walls that stretch for some 1500 m, remain an impressive sight. Next to the fortress is a mausoleum, allegedly of a famous medieval philosopher Abu az-Zamakhshari, and therefore Yzmukshir is also known as Zamakshar

Now it is just a shadow of it’s former self.

Or a direct link is here

https://rees.sas.upenn.edu/about/spotlight/yzmykşir-fort-turkmenistan

Below are some of the other images I took when I went to Yzmukshir fort in 2012 as you can see there are no complete structures and the desert is taking its toll.

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I was approached by a member of staff from from University of Pennsylvania, department of Russian and East European Studies. She kindly asked me if they could use my  photo on one of their pages under the rubrique of “Spotlights”. They make one “Spotlight” page per one interesting location or a sight in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.  It is purely to show our site visitors that there are tons of cool places to explore in that part of the world, on their department University web site

I was delighted and I would like people to access it as much as possible so they can share this part of my epic journey.

Or you can go direct by going direct : https://rees.sas.upenn.edu/about/spotlight/nokhur-cemetery-turkmenistan

You know I wonder if we ever really understand how much our profile image says about us. I always look at profile images not for anything creepy, but because I am a photographer, I am interested in people’s projection of themselves. After all what is the first thing someone sees when they look at your profile, or your comments, but your icon with your profile image on.

Let’s talk about mine; interestingly I thought if I am going to talk about this I need to show you what it is I see or look at when I look at a profile image. I will of course be posting my own profile image so you may see what or where or how I view images. They can be revealing, or say so much about us, so here it goes.

I call it “me behind a mask”, some of you may or may not know, but I currently reside in Thailand with my Partner, who works here. Part of my healing process was to get as far away as physically possible from all the pain and angst that I had in the UK .

One of my particular favourite things outside of the norm of Landscape and Architecture is Street Art, or Graffiti. I can never resist taking images and seeing how they differ from not only artist to artist, but country to country to. They appeal to the creative side of my that is rubbish at anything with a brush and paint.

On a recent stay back in Nong Khai, where I spent my first year in Thailand, (now in Korat). I saw this very unique and stand-alone image on a wall opposite one of my favourite places to eat. Scarily I even stood in the middle of the road to get this image right! (Not recommended in Thailand or anywhere for that matter).

What caught my eye is the colour, I love colour! It reminds me of what I used to be like before all the mess in my life. Colourful. I saw the image was covered in this colourful mask, I believe the character behind the image is portrayed as female, on account of the long pretty eyelashes! So it struck me that I could see myself in this image. The mask was not only colourful, but cracked and jagged, and I saw perhaps a physical show of pain, and the broken pieces (mosaic) as the amount of times of pain, or the sharpness and depth of the pain.

Behind the mask, there is softness with the ears and eyes and hair features, this betrays the person behind the mask, right? The real me, that is so easily hurt and damaged. The softer person.

So this image tells people quite a lot about me, if you look carefully you may see yours says quite a lot about you! Some prefer to be themselves, others will never show their faces or anything that can be traced back to them, and they want to be totally anonymous! And that’s fine.

I also want to say that Photography was and is a big part of my recovery. It has become a necessity to me, it gets me out of the house/flat, it doesn’t judge me, I can see the World through my eyes not how someone else wants me to see it. I.e. I am a realist, but I also like to experiment with different views. I can do it on my own or with someone else, or in a crowd! No one is standing over my shoulder telling me what to do, or criticizing me, or rushing me. It is a manifestation sometimes of my mood, or focus in life, along with the instant opportunity that may present itself. Spontaneous moments in life that we are not always able to record any other way, Also a record of memories in lives we live. So a valuable tool in anyone’s arsenal to recover from all sorts of depression and anxiety and just generally feeling Meh!

Trust me people who live with depression  or anxiety are not the only people who have suffered, and many of the photographers I speak to say how it has been a life saver for them, or that it keeps them from going under. I am aware that there are photography therapies too. It is well documented with the Institute of Mental Health, and many other therapy organisations. Me I self-started when I was 16 with my first pay packet, then , I didn’t realise it, I was using it as a therapy from my destructive mother, it never left me and now at the age of 55 I think I make a fairly decent picture, but selling is not the aim, I really do do it for enjoyment and my sanity. I hope you try it out and get something out of it too!

Some useful links:
https://www.imh.com.sg/wellness/page.aspx?id=1243
https://phototherapy-centre.com/therapeutic-photography/
https://contrastly.com/can-photography-be-used-as-a-form-o…/

Ævar Guðmundsson is a photographer from Kópavogur Iceland who caught my eye one day whilst I was, dare I say it, researching by surfing the internet for artists. His beautiful and captivating photograph of Kirkjufell jumped out at me.  I had just finished an exercise for my Elements of Design Module about positioning a “point” in a photograph. I couldn’t help but think that this is a great example about what a well placed object can do, in this case the rock in the foreground, and how it can draw the viewer’s eye on first seeing an image. There are also the “points” created by the peak and its reflection. Overall, combined with the wide angle and the pattern of the clouds, you feel as if you are drawn into the scenery, almost as if you are standing in it.

After that I was hooked on Ævar’s autobiographical photography of Iceland. Nearly all of the works I have seen of his are of his home country, but he has a few examples of other countries he has visited such as Poland, Lithuania and Boston in the USA. His subject matter covers stunning scenery, architecture, still life in context and natural phenomenon. Animal life is shown simply by Icelandic horses that dot the landscape and a Puffin. I imagine waiting for wildlife to appear must be difficult in such a harsh environment. There are other wildlife photographers that I follow such as Jason Savage, but for me Ævar is the landscape photographer I take inspiration from.

The key thing I notice most is that, unlike many other photographers I have viewed, less is more with his images. If you visit his website http://www.aevarg.com/forsida  and view his work you will see what I mean. He clearly catalogues his work into the four points of the compass with each cover picture giving you a tantalizing taste of what lies inside that folder. There are a couple of extra folders to cover the Highlands and West fjords. For me it was easy to get the intense urge and desire to go and visit this beautiful piece of the planet. This is what I think his images do; make you want to go and see something different, if not totally unspoilt and in most cases utterly natural. He cleverly uses light to expose the amazing colours of the sky and landscape, which are dominated by blues, whites, greens, browns, yellows and grays. All the colours are crisp, sharp and vibrant and the contrasts are perfect. Even the views of Reykjavik show that their principle city is a wonderfully colourful and cultural place illustrated by the examples of the city buildings with their red, blue and green roofs and the beautiful Harpa concert hall.

I find it difficult to criticise his work, as he manages to do what I aspire to do myself in my own area/style of photography by producing images that make people want to go and experience somewhere new and different. I am not a huge fan of obvious post production work which distorts the original image and Ævar’s work retains that “natural” feel and any post production merely enhances what was already there.

You can also see his work on Flikr

and Facebook

Whilst researching fashion photography for my upcoming shoot at Canon Shoot the Show at London Fashion Week, I spotted that there is an exhibition of Horst at the V&A museum London from 6th September – 4th January. I felt it would provide a great opportunity to get some ideas about what can be done with light and see how fabrics and models behave in front of the camera. This more than lived up to my expectations and proved to be a source of inspiration not only for the fashion shoot but for the rest of my photography.

At the start of the exhibition you are introduced to Horst through a brief biography and a corridor of black and white photographs depicting fashion from the 1930s. This moves through the development of his style with light or in some cases the lack of it which makes some images very “dark” and quite moody. It clearly shows the lengths he went to create these images, using elaborate backgrounds and sets, in some cases at quite some cost.

At the end of this section of the exhibition were a set of mannequins displayed with some copies of the dresses worn in some of the previous images. What struck me was how small women were (1930s). Apparently the museum had to have the mannequins especially made for this exhibition as modern mannequins are too big! The other thing I noticed about the dresses on display was the lack of colour in them, cream or black, although what they lacked in colour they certainly made up for in pattern.

The next open room in the exhibition focussed on Horst’s time with Salvador Dali. Here was the truly weird and I really wasn’t sure about some images such as the Lobster picture (and I like surrealism). You are able to see Horst’s sketch books and a good selection of images that show how Horst experimented and managed to create some truly surreal

Moving on through to his next section, “The wall of Fame” as I called it, with many of the Hollywood greats of the time. Marlene Dietrich in an iconic picture looking to me more natural and less dramatic than I have seen in other pictures of her. There were many stars including Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, Vivien Leigh, Noël Coward, Ginger Rogers and Joan Crawford. You can see how Horst showed his skills at manipulating light in these images, which is almost as important as the stars themselves. These effects have been mimicked by many since (Madonna springs to mind in her music video, aptly named”Vogue”).images.

The next section was a very small but significant section on Horst’s travels and some natural world images, the first on display to include colour. The travel images mainly focus on his stay in Iran in the 1940s after falling in love with a British diplomat, Valentine Crawford.  These include shots of traditional tribesmen going about their lives or naturally posed in portraits and several of key landmarks. Here I got a sense of  “recording time” particularly in his set of images of Persepolis, a place I have been fortunate enough to visit and photograph (including some of the same ruins and reliefs Horst shot). This section made me smile as I recognised these landmarks and remembered taking similar if not the same angles and views myself.

Next I came to the small but interesting natural world exhibits where I could see the influence of his time spent with Dali coupled with his love of playing with light to create shapes and views you might not normally associate with this type of subject. The crisp stunning detailed images of the shells really caught my eye. I was interested to see how he managed to create artistic and pleasing images void of people, different from the images people normally associate him with. His idea was to produce patterns and repeats that could be used for wallpaper and textiles.

Nearing the end of the exhibition you are dazzled by the section on his time producing covers for Vogue magazine. Starting from 1935 there were some 90 covers in a display cabinet (they looked like original copies) with some key editions enlarged on the walls. Many of the covers reflected the surrealism I’d seen earlier in the exhibition, but were now in colour, whilst others went back to his work in the 1930s. The sheer riot of colour was an assault on the eyes, all be it a pleasant one! As the covers spanned several decades, they documented without words women and fashion through the years and the changing manner in which women have been portrayed.

The final section of images are almost sculpture like photographs of nude male men in a variety of tasteful poses which again accentuate the shadows created by light from different angles on the body. Here I saw that it was not the face (as in many other of his images) but the body and it’s form (in Greek god style) that he was looking to get the viewer to focus on. All of these were in black and white (or shades of grey) and left me admiring the sheer beauty of his work.

I could have easily spent another few hours looking at Horst’s work (there were some 250 photographs). Inspired by Horst I was inspired to capture different elements of fashion when I attended Canon Shoot the Show and have included in that write up a selection of the more non conventional images I took. I obviously did not have the control over the models and their poses that Horst did, or access to different lighting and backgrounds, but I still felt inspired to move away from just front on full length runway shots.

All Horst images contained in this post are freely available from Google Images (04/10/2014) and are not my own work.

Viviane Sassen At The Photographer’s Gallery

Spurred on by my visit to the Horst Exhibition at the V&A earlier last year my tutor made me aware that Viviane Sassen was exhibiting at the Photographer’s Gallery. With one thing and another I made it just before the exhibition closed on January 18th 2015! It was very definitely worth it.

Throughout the entire duration of the exhibition admission was free from 10am – 12pm, an added bonus. There are five floors to this very striking brick building which is tucked away off the main and very busy Oxford Street, down some steps between two shops, opening out into a small walk through plaza. Very old London Town.

This was a visually physical moving exhibition across two sides on the top floor of the gallery. In the first side of the exhibition you are greeted by slide show one, vertical images like super models on a catwalk in a continuous loop.

The second side had blocks to sit and view a 45min show which was much more attention grabbing. I took the opportunity to  video it as others around me were, not only to remind myself of the plethora of images I had seen but to capture the clever design of the exhibition display which lent itself perfectly to this slide show. Again this was fashion show style but this time it was in both landscape and portrait orientation. I shot two videos hand held, the second one is on this link.

The first thing that impacted me was the sheer volume of images that I was about to witness. I was left wondering over what period of time these were produced in, something I could have asked her myself if I had got to the “Breakfast Artist Talk” she gave at the gallery at the end of October 2014!

There have been many comments about the riot of colour she uses in her work, some I think reflecting her early life in Kenya, where clothes can be brightly coloured. I wonder if this use of dark and light becomes almost natural to the eye when it is constantly part of your surrounding environment. Many of the images contained a noticeable unmissable dominant colour, whether it was a splash or an accent. I saw that she wasn’t frightened of using this, not only in the backgrounds or clothes, but actually as paint on the models themselves. Other times she adds colour post-production. I was inspired to see so many different ways that she brings or sometimes excludes colour from her pictures. I wished I had seen her work during my previous module in TAOP, especially when I was working on the colour section. It would have made it so much clearer how to use colour and I have made a good note of this for future consideration, not just the amounts of colour used but the contrasts, complimentary colours, items of colour, use of natural colour and just the different ways you could use it.

I couldn’t help thinking whilst watching the show that if I was one of her models I would feel she worked me really hard! Although this would probably be a welcome change after walking the catwalk as stiffly as possible and without expression. I got a sense of her constantly pushing the boundaries of what you normally see when looking at people photography. Models are shown in a variety of poses, but none of them looking artificial or contrived more organic and interesting, even challenging.

It is not just the positioning of her subjects but the different views and techniques she uses that give her images such impact and make them so inspiring. This includes the use of double exposures, post-production using overlay or light painting, using silhouette, mirror, juxtaposition, combining bodies to make one, nudity, contrast (colour and B&W), orientation (taking a picture one way and then displaying it another to create illusion) and so it goes on. You will not be bored when looking at her work and I expect she wasn’t when she was shooting it, or the models when posing I suspect.

Although there are many images  where the subjects features are clearly visible there is also a great use of anonymity with the use of different techniques to make the face not the focal point. This is something that has inspired me for my project making figures anonymous in the People and Place module.

A lot of this is done through the position of the model, or through the use of the clothes, or very much like Horst with shadow and silhouette, toning and positioning.

Some of her work I feel can be almost quite classic, for example the image below is almost “Old Dutch Master” in its look and would not look out-of-place amongst oils in an art gallery, I first thought of Vermeer’s “Girl with the pearl earring” but feel that actually it was even more like some of the work by a more modern Photographer Hendrik Kerstens, I wondered if in fact Sassen had been inspired by some of his work when “experimenting with her own ideas, leading to this final image.

From Vivienne Sassens Book ” In And out of Fashion”

Since 1995, Dutch photographer Hendrik Kerstens has been photographing his daughter, Paula.  Kersten has commented himself that he was inspired by Vermeer but brought his own unique twist to some of the images he produced

All I can say is  loved it, and I have taken so much on-board from seeing this style of photography. Experimentation and being fearless in trying new techniques and angles of view in producing images is what I’ve taking forward into my own work. There I was trying to be taken seriously as someone who produces “good  formal images” and actually I see now that it is more about becoming your own artist.

As Ansel Adams famously said, “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

I was left wondering when considering the volume of work that I saw at this particular exhibition, how many images were taken and how many were rejected before arriving at the final selection. Now that would be telling wouldn’t it? I suspect Mr Adams would have famously quoted again: “You may need to go back again and again until you get the shot you want”.

John Gerrard: Solar Reserve at The Thomas Dane Gallery London 2014

Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada), 2014 is shown for the first time outside the US, following its dramatic presentation in Lincoln Centre Plaza by the Public Art Fund in late 2014.  Shown here as a large-scale projection, the work is a painstakingly accurate, virtual portrait of a functioning solar power plant. Ten thousand concentrically arranged monumental mirrors move in real-time according to the sun’s position.  This virtual scene was created with a team of programmers using a sophisticated massive world simulation engine that situated the sun, moon and stars as they appear at the actual Nevada site over the course of a year. As this virtual world rotates on the earth’s axis throughout a 24 hour day, the perspective of the viewer gradually shifts from ground level to satellite view every hour, so that no view is precisely the same at any point during the course of the exhibition.

“Victoria!” by Annette Johnson

3^rd place in SaPP (Street and People Photography) Competition “People commuting through the city)

About me:

I currently live in Korat in Northern Thailand having spent most of my life living in London and the South of England. I am retired and enjoy my time photographing the world around me and travelling.

Back in 1982 I bought my first film camera, an Olympus OM10 and progressed through many more SLRs until the advent of digital.  I have to say I was slightly reluctant to engage with digital at first, but the lower costs and the delight of getting instant results won me over. A Nikon D70 was my first digital camera, followed by a variety of models including a Sony, before arriving at my current camera a Canon 70D. Funny how I have gone from D70 to 70D, that still makes me smile!

My passion for photography has quickly taken over my life alongside my love of travel. I have combined the two in the hope of inspiring people to go and visit amazing places, meet wonderful people and experience so much more of our wonderful world. If they can’t then hopefully my photography will give them an insight into other people and places and let the creative side of their brain relax and enjoy the world.

About “Victoria!”

I find London a fantastic city; a mix of people, sounds, smells, architecture and culture that makes it a wonderful location for photography.

During 2015 when I was undertaking a photography course, that I started working on a project called “making people anonymous”.  I had researched other artists and photographers to get some inspiration and ideas (always a good thing to do). I visited an art exhibition at The Photographer’s Gallery in London which was exhibiting the work of Viviane Sassen. I was interested in her as another female photographer and also because she has a great way of using “colour” and “anonymity” within her work. Sometimes this seems deliberate in the way she forms the models in her final images, but at other times it seems almost accidental. I became a great fan straight away and got ideas for how I could approach my project to make people anonymous in my own work.

The second inspiration I found was much closer to home in L S. Lowry, the great 20^th century “matchstick men and women” artist from the north of England. I found that anonymity in his images came from the number of people, the lack of features and the dark dress of his subjects. Many of his paintings display a mass all shuffling their way along to work, city or parks.

I wondered how I could mimic this photographically, so I decided to experiment with light and shutter speed in the digital format. I spent the best part of a day in London trying to capture images of people where the subject would remain anonymous or where I could “make” the subject anonymous.

As I was waiting at Victoria Station for my train home, which was delayed by about 40 minutes, I started to look at the area around me.  As you come into Victoria station you have to traverse across the concourse to the ticket machines to reach the platforms. On the left are some escalators that lead to a Sushi restaurant and a pub. Outside of these is a gallery overlooks the concourse.  You can see almost a football field’s width of tiled floor and the beautiful glass vaulted ceiling that makes Victoria such a beautiful example of the period’s architecture. Mixed in with the brick Victorian walls and door arches are cast iron columns holding up the enormous framework needed to support the vast glass ceiling.

I positioned myself where I could see the whole of the station floor. The gallery is edged with a glass and steel balcony giving anyone an unobstructed view across the whole scene in front of you.  Now normally I would have my tripod with me for this kind of slow shutter work, but London streets are not so “tripod friendly”.  I started to shoot hand held standard settings just to get a feel for the light and angles of view. I find that I get a better feel for such large spaces this way and it gives me a chance to try to see what works or looks best. I am aware that what my eye sees the camera doesn’t always capture.

As I watched the hordes of commuters pouring into the station, my eyes were looking for colour, shape, pattern, numbers, direction, and most important of all movement! As soon as I saw the right point in the flow of people I shot the first few frames off, this time resting my camera on the bar rail. I dropped my shutter speed until I got just the right amount of blur in the movement of the many commuters. I must have fired of another five or six shots and remember looking at them on my camera screen and feeling delighted that my images were coming out as I had intended. I continued for some ten minutes, catching different groups of people and their movement or lack of movement and the different directions they were moving in.

The next few days were spent going through the many images I had taken before I finally arrived at “Victoria!”  This image captured perfectly what I was trying to achieve i.e. making people anonymous. Although you can clearly see that people are present in the image, their features are blurred through their movement. However, there is still a strong sense of direction and colour as people rush to get home. I see this very much as people photography, even though the subjects are not clearly defined.

I noted afterwards how it was ironic that I had spent all day planning and shooting in London and finally achieved what I set out to do at the very end of the day and somewhere I had never planned to use for this project.

Border Life

This is the story behind the set of images I shot at the Thai Lao Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai that was posted on SaPP recently. I often see something when I’m out and about and think that I would like to spend more time there or take pictures of what I’ve seen. This was the case with the Friendship Bridge, an area I’d been to and that wasn’t far from where I was living at the time.

The next step is to think about the style of photography the situation lends itself to; street photography, landscape, a 52 Week Challenge Project, architecture etc. etc. This is the point at which lens selection becomes important alongside my ability to carry equipment which depends on the distance I have to travel and my mode of transport.

As this project was relatively close to my home, I was able to visit it by motorbike and I knew that the location would be ideal for people and street photography. I selected my 18-135mm STM lens as my current 70-300mm is broken and pretty unusable now. I had in mind to use this as a long distance capture lens to photograph scenes and people discretely. I also took my 50mm 1.8 lens. I actually found having to make a choice of lens before I got to this location made me work round or move to positions I might not have done if I had had the long zoom. I went to the bridge at the start of the day to get a feel for the layout of the area, what happens where and to experiment with various viewpoints.

My first shot is of the drinks and tea lady. With her hair covered and her apron she reminded me of the ladies that used to do the lunches at my school. She and I had been chatting in very broken Tinglish (a mix of Thai and English). She understood that I wanted to photograph daily life around the Friendship Bridge and was happy for me to capture her at work. I waited until she wasn’t looking directly at the camera and photographed her as she was engrossed in her work. I like this image as it shows the border area isn’t just about officials and people entering and leaving Thailand but about the people who support this daily migration and build their own livelihood around it. This image also shows the beauty of the 50mm 1.8 lens giving a real 35mm length of 80mm. I felt distant enough to balance her in the frame making her the centre of attention whilst maintaining detail.

The other things you will notice around the Friendship Bridge are the large numbers of Tuk Tuk drivers and their vehicles. There is a strict pecking order, not only in fares, but who parks where and in what order they are able to pick up passengers. I took several images of drivers pushing and pulling these cumbersome vehicles in a co-ordinated dance that maintains this unspoken hierarchy. Some drivers appeared to be outside of this system, waiting further away from the designated parking area and they attracted my attention. Although they had to wait longer for passengers and presumably had longer gaps between journeys, they looked relaxed and in no particular hurry. My next image captured a young driver, not yet part of the organised system with his headphones on waiting for a fare to come his way. I like that the image also shows the span of generations working the Tuk Tuks here and the different ways they relax. The young man plugged into his mobile phone, whilst the older man sits still on a stool smoking an unseen cigarette.

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As the morning progressed, the area became busier as more people crossed the bridge and the food stalls that dot the area, the cafes and 7/11 in the small parade of shops came alive. Many of the stalls serve grilled chicken or hot dogs but my eye was drawn to one selling fresh cut fruit. There was lots of traffic passing this stall but I sat and watched this stall holder serve a few people until I found exactly the right angle and position to get this shot in. What made me photograph this young man was his height. As soon as I saw him I could see how he would give the image balance and draw the eye. Positioning him in the frame was tricky as you never know which direction people are going to move off into. Watching and reading body language helps a bit with predicting this and in this instance I felt I got it right.

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Soon the first wave of border crossing buses had arrived and the next image of the two ladies carrying their bags together across the post just told me to shoot! This is so typical of the people around this area the women working together to get the items across to their destination. They conveyed to me an image of hard working women who have little choice but to carry their precious sack across the divide. What also struck me was their age. I didn’t see one young person carrying anything as heavy across. In fact they were more likely to be crossing with just mobile phones and day packs! I converted this image to sepia in PP in homage to their youth and their generation now.

This brings me to the last image from this shoot which I have called “Mum and Daughter”. I couldn’t help but want to capture the obvious excitement displayed by this child as she crosses into Thailand . Is this her first visit? Will it be a short visit or the start of a long adventure? The photo begs you to wonder at what lies ahead for this young child and share in her excitement. This scene reminded me that when I was 18 months old my mother took me across the border from one country to another. We travelled from Cyprus where I was born to England (my father was in the RAF at the time) and I’m sure people who saw me then would have seen a look of wonder and excitement in my face as I embarked on a new chapter in my life. Yet again, I aged the image to give it the feel of reflecting the past, in this case a link to my own history.

My contribution this issue is not so much Photographic but what we photograph with and why.

A big subject I hear you say and it is which is why I am going to keep it just to my thoughts and examples.

I currently own a Canon 70d a very capable and commonly touted as an “enthusiasts” camera. I am very happy with it, it is a good workhorse of a camera, it’s tough, and it has a plethora of settings and adjustments to keep me happy for many years. “Where’s this leading?” I hear you ask.

Well the one thing I have noticed is that the more street photography or actually the more any photography I do the more I am exploring the options. I find myself using my rather battered but still fully functional   Lumix Lx3 and occasionally my mobile phone the Samsung J5. In fact I am experimenting more with that than anything else at the moment.

So this article is to explore the view on them, a short discussion where is the future of photography taking us?

In this ever technological world or making things smaller, lighter, faster, cleverer! Photography has been hot on the heel of mobile phones and vice versa. From top of the range iPhone to Olympus OMD Mirrorless and even Canons 100D the smallest dslr currently in production.

Where will it all end? Many say the future of Photography is in the mirrorless camera, but does it really matter what you use so long as it does what you want it to. So many Photographers I know will only ever consider their CANIKON DSLR as the best thing ever to photograph with and they will never switch to anything else, not even their phones.

Some photogs become what are commonly referred to “addicted to GAS” or “Gear Acquisition Syndrome”. The biggest, the latest, the most expensive…. And so it goes on. I personally don’t have any issue with GAS if you have the budget and skill to match it. So often though it is overlooked at what exactly they are trying to achieve? Quite often the inexperience will show through with poor images or lack of image quality because of their lack of experience. This can be remedied by trying and learning different formats that are easily and readily available. This brings me back to the mobile phone and compact camera.

I am a great believer in trying out all the ways of doing something, some ways will work and others won’t, but until you try them how do you know does what? Only by experimenting and trying these formats will we learn what we can truly create? For me creativity is the key to success, it makes you unique, it gives you something no one else has. The perspectives, the adjustments, are all down to the individual and like all humans we are all individual, with a commonality for viewing pleasure. We all like to view images but once again the images that suit one will not suit another. It is this that we are trying to achieve the pleasure that you give another person from your image and purely on a selfish but human level  Self-actualization, which  occurs when you “maximize your potential, doing the best that you are capable of doing”. That is something I think we all strive for.

So back to the means- What is wrong with using compact, mirrorless or phone cameras? Nothing in fact I would advise people to try out all forms and settle on what they like/get on with the best. Don’t worry just like all human beings you will continue to develop and grow with experience and move onto more technical equipment as you go. For example I started in my photographic experience buying my first SLR when I was 18. An Olympus OM10, from this camera I learnt the fundamentals of photography and some. Waiting was the name of that game, no instant image on the back of the camera. No other way of creating the image I saw in front of me. It was guess work and practice.

Things have moved on and I have embraced the technology and practice and delighted at the reduction in the cost of the images. Sadly this has been added to the cost of the technology, but as technology is moving so fast what is deemed as older or dated models still produce outstanding results with practice.

So my Lx3 images look pretty good considering the small sized sensor. Its ability to shoot RAW makes it that much better if you need to adjust in PP. My experience has been I have had to do very little if nothing to an image coming out of this little beast, except when I want to process artistically. As I have here in the image below. Opting for a gritty grunge HDR effect brought this image out even more than the original, which I was also happy with.

The LX3 carries the images off well for a 10.01megapixel and a wide 24-60mm. with image stabilisation and video. The Samsung J5 has video too but alas no image stabilisation.. The Lx3 is no slouch of a camera though.

So the possibilities with an instrument such as this are still perfectly acceptable unless of course you might want to print a billboard with it and as the files are RAW that can still be done!

This view above of the rocks at Koh Lanta Yai at near sunset show that even in poor light this Lx3 behaves well and so it should with its f/2- 2.8 apertures. This image is SOOC completely unedited.

Same beach and not quite the same aspect but again fading light. The 70d captures more tones and is a lot less processed than the Samsung J5 and even the superb Lx3. Personally I can’t see the difference in IQ between the two and neither do most people looking at them (Pixel peepers excluded). Please note this was a Raw file imported into Lr5 then immediately exported as a JPEG

This image above same location is taken with my J5 mobile phone. This sports a 13 megapixel camera, which is one of the reasons I gave it consideration when replacing my broken Samsung S3. I wanted something with better image capabilities but didn’t want the bulk. Sure enough it’s photo interface is basic although it does allow you to change modes from Auto to full manual and adjust the ISO (800) WB(standard range) and exposure compensation(+2 to -2) as well as metering. It also carries a sports mode and panorama which I have found useful. I have found that although the parameters of this Mobile are far greater in limitation to my 70d for example I have been able to work around these and learned when and how I can use them to their best.

So what I am trying to illustrate here is that anybody can take decent photographs with what they have so long as they take time to learn the camera and its capabilities. It seems that too many people are missing the point! It’s not the kit you have it’s how you use it! It’s also not how much or how new it is, it’s how often do you take it out and use it?

So….Maybe after reading this you might have a wider view of the options for you.