Toni Ahvenainen
Searching for reason
Season of Photogrpahic Eye - picture 4
Week 46, Saturday
I didn't pick up any camera for a long time after my experiments with a cheap analog camera and Velvia 50. After many years doing something else, I did get excited with some of my friends DSLR. We did some photography like HDR panoramas and I recognized, again, my potential inspiration for photography but even if it was fun it didn't really trigger my own pursue for photography. It wasn't lucid to me then, but now I see very clear: I didn't have any real reason to shoot nor did I have a 'real purpose' for my photography. Of course I could have bought the camera and go shoot sun sets for example. But for what reason?
Part of my disinterest regarding photography related to technical obstacles as well. I had been more or less disappointed with all the earlier cameras I had been using whether they were analog or digital. My (relatively little) experience with them has showed me how difficult it was to turn ideas and images in my mind into real photographs that actually looked like something. Photography with an analog camera felt like a wheel of fortune and what came out of it was very hard to control. And the early digital wasn't much better, because it seemed to me that there were never enough light and most of my images turned into noisy and congested digital files that had nothing to do with the original image I had in my mind (or eyes for that matter). Of course I knew that others could create great pictures with big DSLRs, flashes, external lights and what else. I was never interested to go into that direction. I just wanted to capture things how I saw them in the first place (yes, I know it was a pretty amateur presumption at the time).
Finally all that changed when our daughter Aura was born two and half years ago. Suddenly I felt something extraordinary was happening in my life and I realized that I need to capture it before it passes away. I took the first images, again, with a loaned camera (Panasonic LX-5, if I remember correctly) but soon realized that I finally need to buy my own camera. I didn't have much money and with a help of a friend I settled for Sony Nex-5N which I didn't know about. When I got the Sony Nex-5N I was actually surprised to see it was so different from all the other digital cameras I had tested before. It was tiny and had pretty modest setup options, but when it came to image quality it delivered. I was so excited and surprised to have a DSLR quality (and better) with such a small package. Together with Sony 50/1.8 the Sony Nex-5N felt very liberating because I could suddenly shoot in any circumstances and get usable pictures. And because it was so small, I could carry it everywhere with an ease. Now that finally I had a reason to shoot and I had a great camera to go with it, my inspiration and creativity boosted up high and I shot over 26 000 images in first year. Finally the photo bug had found me.
Year of the Alpha – 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com
Searching for reason
Season of Photogrpahic Eye - picture 4
Week 46, Saturday
I didn't pick up any camera for a long time after my experiments with a cheap analog camera and Velvia 50. After many years doing something else, I did get excited with some of my friends DSLR. We did some photography like HDR panoramas and I recognized, again, my potential inspiration for photography but even if it was fun it didn't really trigger my own pursue for photography. It wasn't lucid to me then, but now I see very clear: I didn't have any real reason to shoot nor did I have a 'real purpose' for my photography. Of course I could have bought the camera and go shoot sun sets for example. But for what reason?
Part of my disinterest regarding photography related to technical obstacles as well. I had been more or less disappointed with all the earlier cameras I had been using whether they were analog or digital. My (relatively little) experience with them has showed me how difficult it was to turn ideas and images in my mind into real photographs that actually looked like something. Photography with an analog camera felt like a wheel of fortune and what came out of it was very hard to control. And the early digital wasn't much better, because it seemed to me that there were never enough light and most of my images turned into noisy and congested digital files that had nothing to do with the original image I had in my mind (or eyes for that matter). Of course I knew that others could create great pictures with big DSLRs, flashes, external lights and what else. I was never interested to go into that direction. I just wanted to capture things how I saw them in the first place (yes, I know it was a pretty amateur presumption at the time).
Finally all that changed when our daughter Aura was born two and half years ago. Suddenly I felt something extraordinary was happening in my life and I realized that I need to capture it before it passes away. I took the first images, again, with a loaned camera (Panasonic LX-5, if I remember correctly) but soon realized that I finally need to buy my own camera. I didn't have much money and with a help of a friend I settled for Sony Nex-5N which I didn't know about. When I got the Sony Nex-5N I was actually surprised to see it was so different from all the other digital cameras I had tested before. It was tiny and had pretty modest setup options, but when it came to image quality it delivered. I was so excited and surprised to have a DSLR quality (and better) with such a small package. Together with Sony 50/1.8 the Sony Nex-5N felt very liberating because I could suddenly shoot in any circumstances and get usable pictures. And because it was so small, I could carry it everywhere with an ease. Now that finally I had a reason to shoot and I had a great camera to go with it, my inspiration and creativity boosted up high and I shot over 26 000 images in first year. Finally the photo bug had found me.
Year of the Alpha – 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com