With half the world locked down in during 2020 you would be correct in thinking photography took a back seat, which of course it has done. In total lockdown and unable to get out of the house there wasn’t a lot to photograph or was there?
I took some time cleaning my cameras then the lenses then the tripods repairing or replacing broken parts. I also spent a spectacular couple of days inspecting filters, cleaning them or throwing them away. Not to mention cleaning half a dozen camera bags sowing them up and I even cut out a broken zip on one of them and gluing (yes I used glue not a needle and thread) a new one in place. This spectacular day was only surpassed by the day I found two aluminium cased circa 1970’s complete with obsolete foam cut outs. These two cases are as good as the day I bought them apart from the fact they are without foam but they do look great with their new blue coat of hammer finish paint I bought in the 1980’s which I also never used.
All this took me with less and less enthusiasm as the hours ticked into days and the days into week. Then the brainwave hit me I should sort out photo files, my digital photo files that is, well I do have almost twelve TB’s of them after all. Maybe I should gone through them all before and I often intended to do just that but somehow I never managed it. So this was the ideal time to do just that and I fully intended to do that and I did start believe me. First of all I went through each shot and deleted those out of focus, duplicated, poor colour quality and so on. I then got distracted by Photoshop not my favourite pastime and then I stopped, with only 500 GB’s done. Not a job I have ever been found of doing, like is just too short and you can get it done by people that know what they are doing and who didn’t first develop films in 1968.
The thing is with an hour a day to exercise I felt slightly guilty walking around with my camera accompanied by my dog. There are just so many things you can shoot in your own home or is there I found myself asking. Some time ago I bought a 90mm F/2.8 lens to shoot portraits and a great 1:1 Macro facility, I am not going to say which make because they don’t do anything for me so why should I? I will say that if you message me I will tell you.
I decided to give the Macro a little try and I have to say I was impressed even though I did say so myself. I tried it first on the Chess Set that has adorned my coffee table for ten years, then on the flowers delivered to the house with the groceries again great results. I found that opening the windows with a long lens fitted early in the morning allowed me to get some shots of the wildlife in the garden even if it was only squirrels. I got out from a box a glass ball the size of a cricket ball and shot a few frames through that. Everyday items shot reflected in a glass of red wine also took on a whole new protective and I got to drink the prop after the shoot.
I found out just how hard it is shooting steam from a boiling kettle, who would have thought you needed a telephoto lens, not for sure. I even put the ring flash I bought in 2000 to use even if I could not find the instructions, thank you YouTube for that.
There is always something you can do with a photograph and let’s face it with digital cameras you aren’t wasting film are you?