Day 134: a reluctant iPhone photographer!

I've been suffering from separation anxiety. My little baby had a brief trip to the Leica spa as it seems to have some sort of predilection for attracting dust on the sensor, it was supposed to be only a few hours but a misunderstanding meant I was deprived for 2 1/2 long, loooong days. On returning, its magnetic attraction to fluff is sadly still evident, in fact worse, a rare feat for a camera with a non-interchangeable lens. Leica feel somewhat thwarted and have offered me a brand new, hopefully very dust-phobic, replacement. Fingers crossed that we can reach a resolution.

In the meantime, due to extreme deprivation, I did something I very rarely do, take a photo with an iPhone. I was crossing the road this morning and was struck by the dramatic shadows the early sunshine was casting and was obliged to turn around and try and capture it. Even though the entire world around me is using iPhones, Androidsand bizarrely iPads to record every waking moment, I feel uncomfortable doing it myself. I so prefer putting my camera to my eye and seeing clearly what’s happening at the edges and corners of my image. I guess it’s not so long ago that my Leica had no EVF and I had to purely rely on live view. I bought my first EVF in August 2011 en route to a crazy photography weekend in Cambridge. And as soon as I had one, I couldn’t fathom how I had managed without one up until then. This earlier model could very easily fly off so I fashioned some sort of Heath Robinson construction to tie the EVF on securely onto the camera and prevent accidents.

Earlier in April I had been on a photography holiday to Berlin and the sun was so strong I shot most of the photos without really seeing what was happening on the back of the camera at all. And curiously, I am very fond of some of these photographs, especially the harsh shadows in the poignant Jewish Memorial. I am well overdue a return visit to Berlin and it would be interesting to see what has happened to my photography in the interim. The second thing I love about my EVF (and even more so with the Typ 109 have a built in one) is being to review previous taken photographs, unhampered by bright sunlight and the failing eyesight I suffer from. I am not sure immediately what difference this photograph would have if I my trusty Leica by my side and I appreciate I am in the minority, but I just cannot get my head around camera phonography!

 

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Day 333 : the first robin

Last year I made a shopping list of festive images I was hoping to capture with my camera. Namely a snow dusted holly bush, icicles, a snowman, footprints in the deep snow, a robin, snowflakes, a Narnia style snowscape. I managed to tick a few off, I'm surrounded by holly bushes so all I had to was wait for the snow. The snowscape was the prefect snow-carpeted scene through my window, I half expected Narnia’s white witch to pull up in her sledge proffering fluffy rose-scented Turkish delight. One morning I spotted some fine icicles hanging from the railway bridge but a decent snowman shot totally alluded me. I only had a fleeting glance of a robin, so no chance there. But many months later I'm a little luckier.

A few doorsteps down from mine I spotted the elusive quarry perched tantalisingly on the metal swing gate. My first robin of the year. Curses, my camera’s in my bag and getting it out of the case is noisy (note to self, must find an alternative for the Velcro) Perhaps in this case it will be safer to use my iPhone 5S to try and be more discrete. Luckily I had good enough light to not really need the wider aperture but I still would have preferred to have the considerably greater control my Leica offers me. I'd love to compare them both side by side because I think this photograph is a little soft and would be intrigued to see exactly how it would be different.

Now I have managed to photograph my first robin, I'm ready to up the ante. A robin, some holly with vivid red berries and snow. Is that too much to ask? I guess now I've upgraded from stalking baby snails to sneaking up on robins. Now to find some silent Velcro.

 

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Day 323 : addicted to sunsets

Back at Canary Wharf again, my new second home. It's approaching that time of the day when the sun is slipping from the sky and the golden tones emanating from behind the buildings. I'm itching to get my camera but we have a tight schedule and have to hotfoot it from one client to another. As we approach the sun is a fiery orange ball exploding through a gap between buildings, it's so tantalising, and I so what to point my camera in that direction. So torn, so little time but I am clutching my iPhone. I need more time and I want to grab my camera out of my bag it I’ll have to compromise with the phone camera.

A swift shimmy to the reception to discover my next appointment would like to put back our meeting by fifteen minutes. Result! But then as we now have “all the time in the world” the receptionist slowly makes our badges whilst I'm surreptitiously trying to see if the sunset is still happening. Badges made we’re asked to take a seat and I figure I could just run across the road and catch the last few rays if I'm sharpish. I leave my bags with V and do that that but, noooooo, my battery is flat arghh! Back across the road again, through the revolving door I grab a spare charged battery from my handbag and hurtle across the road again but there's very little left. There's a deep terracotta line on the horizon, which is quite pleasing but maybe ten minutes earlier it would have been spectacular. It seems I can never get my fill of a good sunset, I don't think I suffer from SAD (bring a Northerner we’ve been acclimatised to sun deprivation) but I feel recharged by those pinky purples, orangey reds and the golden yellowy ochres streaked across the bruising sky, manna for my occasionally black soul. My name is J and I'm a sunset-aholic!

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