Darkhorse
pointed and shot
I'm home sick today. Amid the lumped up tissues I have on my desk, I've been browsing some of my oldest digital photos. I had taken photography in University in 2000, played around with an old SLR that belonged to my grandfather, and took a few shots with an unreliable Pentax point and shoot I got for Christmas one year, but the Canon A70 is where things really began for me. I had more freedom to take a lot of photos. That's a big advantage to digital, at least it was back then.
But looking back, I remember all the misconceptions I had, how frustrated I felt in certain situations, the technical knowledge I lacked, and how narrow my ideas were when taking photos. The following photos in this thread are some old favorites, and some shots I ignored.
I first got the A70 in April of 2003. Back then it was quite expensive,, more so than an S95 costs today, but not quite as expensive as a 10gb iPod. At the time I had finished school, gotten my degree and a graphic design diploma. I was looking for a place in the world to belong to.
My first stop was Australia. A land that had always appealed to me, and had a certain mystique. However, by the end of it the mystique had been shattered. I saw some nice places but, I can admit now, it was a socially awkward experience. I started off with a girl, and a job interview lined up - ended up with neither and wandering around Melbourne on my own. Luckily I saved a bit of face when I went on some bus tours and took photos.
The predominant thing I notice with my photos back then was that I tended to underexpose everything ALL THE TIME. usually -2/3 stops. I think I did this because I didn't want highlights to get blown out, which is understandable, but made for a lot of muddy photos.
I took photos of all the things you'd expect. Postcard photos of the opera house, kangaroos, that kind of stuff. But I felt so upset if it was an overcast day or cloudy. I almost felt as if a sunny day was the only day a nice photo could be made.
Case in point, the moment when the sun finally appeared in this photo of Philip Island, I felt delighted. For a long time this was my favorite photo.
It's nice. Some barrel distortion and some flare, but it's nice. However, I ignored the following photo because it was overcast. Now, I can see that there's a lot of drama in the scene (this time of the 12 Apostles) that I was missing. It seems so desolate, so lonely, kind of like how I must have been feeling at the time.
I'm not saying it's a great photo. I'm just saying that I see things now that I didn't then. I had to tone down the saturation of this shot - I had the camera on "Vivid". Always on vivid. I also only had a 16mb CF card, so I actually had to constantly upload the photos to my laptop in my backpack every 12 shots if you can believe that. Media was much more expensive then.
After Australia I continued to try and find graphic design work in Victoria (British Columbia) but it was kind of fruitless so I went to Germany to teach English. I don't think I was a particularly good English teacher, but at that age, having a job that allowed you to explore a bit of Europe (albeit in a limited capacity) was a good thing.
I continued to take under-exposed, over-saturated, postcard photos for much of my Europe trip. But it's with the photos of my actual human interactions that have some more lasting appeal to me, even though these were ignored at the time. The Irish couple I lived with in Karlsruhe made for some interesting photos in hindsight.
Interacting with the male in this duo was an eye-opener. Him coming from a poor family with some 12-13 brothers and sisters, and me from a small middle class family upbringing. I said something that really set him off - sure he was drunk, and perhaps unjustified in his anger, but I realized that not everyone is from my little bubble and I need to be mindful of that.
A photo like this really highlights the limitations of the technology a the time. Awful blown out highlights, massive purple fringing. Would've handled this situation better, but I digress.
I was beginning to blossom socially in Germany, and so hanging out with your mother is not high on your list of priorities. She said she had come to explore Europe on her own, but I was deaf to the fact that I was included in this, resulting in terrible friction in the outset. Having been away from home so long, I can now see how important it is to spend time with family when you can. I don't have many photos of my mother from this time, which is a shame because now I realize what a rich source of potential family really is photo-wise.
My photography misanthropy continued in Strasbourg. Take a shot like this. I wanted to photograph THOSE BUILDINGS and THOSE PEOPLE were in the way, and to make matters worse it was OVERCAST at the time. What a terrible situation. This photo was in my ignore pile immediately.
Now I can see a lot going on here. The old ladies with the umbrellas, the gentlemen chatting, the pretty woman taking a photograph, the guy in the right corner scowling. Lots of life that I just did NOT see at the time.
In September of that year (2004) I met a friend from University in Stuttgart and we explored the area with her music group friends. There were many opportunities to photograph some culture and people at this time. I get a bit nostalgic look at the photos from that weekend.
I had to really tone down the photo below. Stupid "vivid" setting again.
As fall set in I realized that I couldn't go on teaching English. I needed to get on with my life, and I decided that making a go of London England (at the strong suggestion of my friends) would be the best way to go. Before I left, I made a quick trip to Athens to photograph the collection of an online acquaintance in Athens.
Athens was great, of course. Getting fries on a gyro gave me a real sense of culture shock. The Athens flea market was alive with excitement... but I only took maybe 3 photos. 3 photos? What? Why so few? Whyyyy so few? Maybe I was saving space on my 256MB CF card for pics of the Acropolis.
I took plenty of photos of the history. I tried very, VERY hard to eliminate any indication of anything modern at all. That's natural I'd think, but seeing the very old in the context of the modern world is interesting in its own way. Here's a photo I immediately rejected, but I find a lot more interesting now.
Scaffolding! Cranes!? Synthetic fabrics!?! A jet up above?!?! It may not be pretty, but it is what it is.
A self portrait. I'm with a Minolta SRT that I used only once with slide film that I, of course, underexposed. I do wish I used it a bit more, and with black and white film... but I just didn't have the means to get into anything like that.
In December I went back to Canada and immediately made plans to move to London England. I got my visa, secured a room in a house in Wimbledon, and in March I was on my way. I had not even secured a job, but I had some prospects. Ultimately the experience can be summed up with this once ditched photo:
Just a kind of dirty stop along the way. Prospects didn't pan out, ate a lot of chips, got pissed, pulled, paid a lot of pounds for a tiny room.
At my lowest I applied for a job in California on a whim, not expecting to hear anything of it. I got a call for an interview in a matter of hours. I was shocked by this. Life was taking a direction I had not expected. But a big change was coming, and before I left I decided to make a last trip to Germany to see the friends I had made. We had a little day trip to Strasbourg, and got drunk at a brewery back in Durlach.
It's hard to keep in touch with people over such large distances, unfortunately. That time in my life is growing more distant, but that's the way it goes. I don't actually long for this time at all, mainly because things are so much more secure for me now, I have a wife, and I live in a nice place. It's just a time when I really started to grow up.
A little soundtrack of this era:
The Verve - This Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A1QxwyT2Lg
Blur - Out of Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPkJwKz91Ds
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3okiWGqKiA
The Hidden Cameras - A Miracle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg_mZ18V2sU
Animal Collective - Winter's Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXSRZ1esX_g
Arcade Fire - Old Flame
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqA3iFFrjk
The Fiery Furnaces - Here Comes the Summer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzB_01fw21w
But looking back, I remember all the misconceptions I had, how frustrated I felt in certain situations, the technical knowledge I lacked, and how narrow my ideas were when taking photos. The following photos in this thread are some old favorites, and some shots I ignored.
I first got the A70 in April of 2003. Back then it was quite expensive,, more so than an S95 costs today, but not quite as expensive as a 10gb iPod. At the time I had finished school, gotten my degree and a graphic design diploma. I was looking for a place in the world to belong to.
My first stop was Australia. A land that had always appealed to me, and had a certain mystique. However, by the end of it the mystique had been shattered. I saw some nice places but, I can admit now, it was a socially awkward experience. I started off with a girl, and a job interview lined up - ended up with neither and wandering around Melbourne on my own. Luckily I saved a bit of face when I went on some bus tours and took photos.
The predominant thing I notice with my photos back then was that I tended to underexpose everything ALL THE TIME. usually -2/3 stops. I think I did this because I didn't want highlights to get blown out, which is understandable, but made for a lot of muddy photos.
I took photos of all the things you'd expect. Postcard photos of the opera house, kangaroos, that kind of stuff. But I felt so upset if it was an overcast day or cloudy. I almost felt as if a sunny day was the only day a nice photo could be made.
Case in point, the moment when the sun finally appeared in this photo of Philip Island, I felt delighted. For a long time this was my favorite photo.
It's nice. Some barrel distortion and some flare, but it's nice. However, I ignored the following photo because it was overcast. Now, I can see that there's a lot of drama in the scene (this time of the 12 Apostles) that I was missing. It seems so desolate, so lonely, kind of like how I must have been feeling at the time.
I'm not saying it's a great photo. I'm just saying that I see things now that I didn't then. I had to tone down the saturation of this shot - I had the camera on "Vivid". Always on vivid. I also only had a 16mb CF card, so I actually had to constantly upload the photos to my laptop in my backpack every 12 shots if you can believe that. Media was much more expensive then.
After Australia I continued to try and find graphic design work in Victoria (British Columbia) but it was kind of fruitless so I went to Germany to teach English. I don't think I was a particularly good English teacher, but at that age, having a job that allowed you to explore a bit of Europe (albeit in a limited capacity) was a good thing.
I continued to take under-exposed, over-saturated, postcard photos for much of my Europe trip. But it's with the photos of my actual human interactions that have some more lasting appeal to me, even though these were ignored at the time. The Irish couple I lived with in Karlsruhe made for some interesting photos in hindsight.
Interacting with the male in this duo was an eye-opener. Him coming from a poor family with some 12-13 brothers and sisters, and me from a small middle class family upbringing. I said something that really set him off - sure he was drunk, and perhaps unjustified in his anger, but I realized that not everyone is from my little bubble and I need to be mindful of that.
A photo like this really highlights the limitations of the technology a the time. Awful blown out highlights, massive purple fringing. Would've handled this situation better, but I digress.
I was beginning to blossom socially in Germany, and so hanging out with your mother is not high on your list of priorities. She said she had come to explore Europe on her own, but I was deaf to the fact that I was included in this, resulting in terrible friction in the outset. Having been away from home so long, I can now see how important it is to spend time with family when you can. I don't have many photos of my mother from this time, which is a shame because now I realize what a rich source of potential family really is photo-wise.
My photography misanthropy continued in Strasbourg. Take a shot like this. I wanted to photograph THOSE BUILDINGS and THOSE PEOPLE were in the way, and to make matters worse it was OVERCAST at the time. What a terrible situation. This photo was in my ignore pile immediately.
Now I can see a lot going on here. The old ladies with the umbrellas, the gentlemen chatting, the pretty woman taking a photograph, the guy in the right corner scowling. Lots of life that I just did NOT see at the time.
In September of that year (2004) I met a friend from University in Stuttgart and we explored the area with her music group friends. There were many opportunities to photograph some culture and people at this time. I get a bit nostalgic look at the photos from that weekend.
I had to really tone down the photo below. Stupid "vivid" setting again.
As fall set in I realized that I couldn't go on teaching English. I needed to get on with my life, and I decided that making a go of London England (at the strong suggestion of my friends) would be the best way to go. Before I left, I made a quick trip to Athens to photograph the collection of an online acquaintance in Athens.
Athens was great, of course. Getting fries on a gyro gave me a real sense of culture shock. The Athens flea market was alive with excitement... but I only took maybe 3 photos. 3 photos? What? Why so few? Whyyyy so few? Maybe I was saving space on my 256MB CF card for pics of the Acropolis.
I took plenty of photos of the history. I tried very, VERY hard to eliminate any indication of anything modern at all. That's natural I'd think, but seeing the very old in the context of the modern world is interesting in its own way. Here's a photo I immediately rejected, but I find a lot more interesting now.
Scaffolding! Cranes!? Synthetic fabrics!?! A jet up above?!?! It may not be pretty, but it is what it is.
A self portrait. I'm with a Minolta SRT that I used only once with slide film that I, of course, underexposed. I do wish I used it a bit more, and with black and white film... but I just didn't have the means to get into anything like that.
In December I went back to Canada and immediately made plans to move to London England. I got my visa, secured a room in a house in Wimbledon, and in March I was on my way. I had not even secured a job, but I had some prospects. Ultimately the experience can be summed up with this once ditched photo:
Just a kind of dirty stop along the way. Prospects didn't pan out, ate a lot of chips, got pissed, pulled, paid a lot of pounds for a tiny room.
At my lowest I applied for a job in California on a whim, not expecting to hear anything of it. I got a call for an interview in a matter of hours. I was shocked by this. Life was taking a direction I had not expected. But a big change was coming, and before I left I decided to make a last trip to Germany to see the friends I had made. We had a little day trip to Strasbourg, and got drunk at a brewery back in Durlach.
It's hard to keep in touch with people over such large distances, unfortunately. That time in my life is growing more distant, but that's the way it goes. I don't actually long for this time at all, mainly because things are so much more secure for me now, I have a wife, and I live in a nice place. It's just a time when I really started to grow up.
A little soundtrack of this era:
The Verve - This Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A1QxwyT2Lg
Blur - Out of Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPkJwKz91Ds
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3okiWGqKiA
The Hidden Cameras - A Miracle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg_mZ18V2sU
Animal Collective - Winter's Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXSRZ1esX_g
Arcade Fire - Old Flame
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqA3iFFrjk
The Fiery Furnaces - Here Comes the Summer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzB_01fw21w
