That’s cool. Photography is the closest I come to creativity, but I’m usually too self-conscious to do much in the way of street photography, and I feel like I’ve exhausted most of the obvious opportunities in my immediate surroundings (i.e. my trip to and from work) - though I’m sure if I had a more creative eye I could find all sorts of new takes on it. So I end up going long stretches not taking any pictures at all. Motivation is a big problems for me in general, to be honest. I have somehow lucked into some photos I really like, though, which stops me giving up on it completely. That and the fact that the very action of pressing the shutter is kind of satisfying in itself. But I do wish I could be braver about stuff like street photography.
And since you mention the A7 line, I’ve got to say that the definition on the A7R2 is ridiculous. Whether it’s meaningful for you would depend on a lot of factors, but you can crop it down to screen resolution with no scaling and still have it look great. The controls are fiddlier than a high-end DSLR, though, which I suppose is somewhat inevitable given the smaller size. Still, the A9 (which I understand is far too much camera if you’re not a sports photographer or something) does have the handy little thumbstick for focus selection, which I miss on the A7R2.
@Beje I’ve been dipping my toe into analogue photography this past year. I’ve really enjoyed the change of pace. It’s fascinating how differently I approach things. It slows me down in several ways: I’m more cautious, because I’m paying for each picture (both film and development); I stop to record the exposure details in an app since there’s no EXIF; and I have to wait weeks or even months to see the outcome, given that I send rolls off in batches. I’m sure the anticipation helps me build a greater attachment to the picture that turn out good, and the colour and texture of film is really fascinating. And using old but perfectly functional equipment is a welcome antidote to the tech lust side of things, which is so often at risk of eclipsing the photography itself. I’d like to get into developing my own film, but sharing a flat doesn’t seem ideal for that, and I’m unsure what route to take with regard to scanners. One day, though.
I did lose my first roll of film recently. It came off the spool and I wasn’t sure what was going on and ended up exposing it all. From what I remember, most of it wasn’t too interesting, but there was one shot of a shaft of sunlight through morning mist that I was really looking forward to seeing. I was pretty disappointed about that.
You can find samples of my photography (digital and analogue) and links to my profiles on various photo-sharing sites in the sadly dormant photography thread [image intensive].
Other than that, my most creative output is tinkering around with silly Web bits and pieces, and the occasional Twitter bot. I sometimes get ideas for bigger coding projects, but if I even get so far as trying to implement them I get in over my head and end up abandoning them.
Anyway, nice to see everyone’s cool stuff.
mostly just to keep me creative.
