How photography makes me a better father (and vice versa)

For years, I actively avoided portrait photography. It certainly wasn’t the genre that attracted me to pick up the camera in the first place. When I joined the club circuit, I was put off even further by studio shoots. Invariably, you include yourself in a bunch of camera wielding lunatics all tripping over each other to get carbon-copy shots of the same models in the same lighting set-ups. I began to associate portraiture with a lack of spontaneity. The only way for me to avoid club-night xeroxing was to change the lighting set up, pack fast lenses, and mess around with low-powered flash that budget zoom users couldn’t work with*, resetting when I was done. But this requires time for planning and execution, which exacerbates the problem.

* You could use an ND filter, but that wouldn’t stop anyone else poaching your set-up. It’s a dirty trick, but it works.

Then I had a child.

Parenthood changes all sorts of things, and for me, it included what I photographed. My wife and I both have full-time, non-photographic jobs, and family in remote locations. We’re like ships that pass in the night, and one of us is always with our daughter, or at work. Many of you will be in a similar situation. I just don’t have two hours a night to go out and perfect my landscapes anymore, and it will be a few years before I can consider letting my daughter follow me along a riverbank photography session. So I found myself taking more portraits by default.

More than anything else, you’re so proud, and so focused on watching everything your progeny does, that you take more photos of another living person than you ever have in your life. Daily life is catalogued and archived, and you’ve never really studied the nuances of a face until you’ve had your first child.

Of course, I learned that I was completely wrong in my perception of portraiture. Whether it’s in the studio, on the street, or with your family, it’s natural, spontaneous reaction that will make your photography stand out from the rest; the freeze-frames of honest expression that bares a person’s soul. Technical savvy will provide polish, but not empathy.

After a few thousand photographs have been taken, you will find a few stand-out favourites. They’re usually ones where there’s a particularly rare expression or activity, and often it’s required very fast reactions to capture the moment. So you keep shooting, and keep practising, until you can recognise the facial muscles preparing for something special. You try to surprise people. And that all makes you a better photographer.

But when you start trying to surprise your child, you start throwing new experiences at them. That’s when the scales tip.

I’m with my daughter a lot, and I consider myself very lucky in that regard, because I get to see her keep changing and learning daily. Because of that, I’m constantly looking for new experiences to share with her, and new places to go. They don’t always cost money; sometimes you just have to visit a different part of your own neighbourhood. But one thing I can say is that she rarely has the opportunity to be bored. We don’t shy away from changing her routine for special events, and she’s developed confidence that belies her very young age. I’m also very keen on explaining to her what I see and why I take photos, which feeds her own curiosity with every outing.

I don’t miss much anymore. My reactions have been honed, and I don’t shy away from photographing other people anymore. Partly this has been helped because my choice of camera system, the Fuji X-Series, has a discreet, retro look that others are comfortable with, and a flattering colour palette. This comes with other advantages: post-processing is almost a thing of the past. I can confidently shoot jpeg, neither needing (nor having) the time to work on files later. I can zap them straight to my wife’s phone with the built-in wifi, and that feature alone was enough to justify my wish to invest fully in changing systems. Happy wife, happy life.

I downsized my gear so that I never had to miss an opportunity by leaving heavy kit at home. I always have at least two cameras on me, and I can still get stuck in and play on the floor, or track her running through a playground.

Sometimes, the desire to catalogue all of these new experiences and expressions creates a drive to introduce surprises. Sometimes, you’re just looking for ways to stimulate your own brain, and accidentally provide an education along the way. Never should your child have to hear from a teacher “you shall not pass”.Sometimes, it’s simpler than that. You just enjoy seeing your child happy, and you try to photograph it wherever you see it. When my little girl grows up, she’ll have all of these reminders of what a happy, full childhood she had. In the meantime, I get to see the world through her eyes, and I shoot it all, so that my wife gets to see all the things she misses when it’s her turn to work. For all of these reasons, she tells me that my photography also makes me a better husband. I’m inclined to agree. She is always right. Just don’t tell her I said that. 

 

One month in

It’s been a little over four weeks since I said goodbye to my DSLR kit and started using Fuji exclusively. It’s been a learning curve, but a worthwhile one.

Here’s the list of negative points.

1. Fuji lens hoods suck. They’re plastic and loose, and don’t feel in proportion to the cameras*.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

That’s not to say it’s been all plain sailing, but so far the only thing I’ve had a problem with which I felt needed immediate remedy, is that the quality of the lenses I bought (more about them in a minute) and the quality of the hoods supplied with those lenses is worlds apart. So they’ve been replaced with some third-party metal hoods that are a bit shorter and a lot more likely to stay in place.

*there are exceptions. I really like the hood of the 35mm, although it’s still far too loose for my liking.

I’ve yet to see any problems with contrast-sapping lens light leaks in the lenses I picked. I went with the 14mm F/2.8; 56mm 1.2, and the 50-140mm F/2.8. The 56mm is the only one so far which has shown any sort of flare, and it resulted in a beautiful warming glow in the “affected” area. And it’s exactly what I wanted in a lens: character.

Flare from the morning sun. Fuji X-E2 + 56mm

I owned a Nikon 70-200mm VRII a few years back, which I sold after taking receipt of the Tamron equivalent. In all other respects, I preferred the Tamron. But when you shot a backlit portrait with the Nikon, there was a beautiful yellow haze that would cover the entire image. Every time I used the Tamron in similar circumstances, I missed that haze. It was an optical imperfection, but it made the images a bit more special.

So I don’t need a hood to cut down glare, but I do like to keep them on the lenses as a way of protecting the front element, and to give me a bit of choice in whether or not I need a lens cap when out in the field. Having a shorter hood gives me that option, but doesn’t require a larger bag to put into practice. And that’s the real beauty of my new kit.

That's my entire kit, in a bag the same size as my paltry size 7's

I’m now using a Think Tank Change Up 2.0. In that, I can fit a 14mm, a 56mm, a 50-140, an X-E2, an X100T (with 35mm TC), a Nissin i40 flash unit, and all manner of batteries and filters for a trip. There’s even an old Nikon 55mm macro lens and adaptor in there that used to belong to my Grandfather. Full, it weighs 5kg. That’s everything I have (for really lightweight trips, it’s just the X100T, which brings it down to a few hundred grams). I don’t have to plan a trip anymore, I can just grab the bag and go.

There are things which I still feel could be better. I know that Fuji is already addressing some of those things with the X-Pro 2, like the fact that there are times I do make use of the optical finder (which I miss on the X-E2), and the selection of single focus points. But they aren’t deal breakers. Even the continuous focus, which feels very strange as it hunts. Because when it hits, it nails it .

Scarlet Macaws over Sheffield. Really. Fuji X-E2 + 50-140mm

I would love to see a firmware update that lets us change the focus ring sensitivity for each lens, which I’m sure must be possible with fly-by-wire lenses, and other options for panoramic shooting. But none of these things would send me running back to a DSLR anytime soon.

The best DSLRs will give lovely, crisp images with eye watering resolution. However, my images became more and more sterile over time. The constant push for technical perfection robbed me of the desire to simply respond and shoot. I needed something that was more carefree, easier to carry and fit into my life. I didn’t need more resolution than the Fuji X Trans II offers. I’ve built a system around the X100T, using that as my central starting point, and buying a set of lenses for when I needed to go wider, faster, or longer. There’s not one weak link in the chain, and I’m delighted with my choices.

Common frog. Fuji X-E2 + 50-140mm

Robin. 50-140mm

Tunnels Beaches, Devon. Fuji X100T

Hele Bay. Fuji X100T

Pastures new

It’s been four years since my attention was diverted towards the publication of my other blog, The Days Zoom Past. It turned out to be a monumental undertaking, and expanded my photographic portfolio rapidly while giving me a chance to try out the best that Tamron had to offer in a range of situations. The various lenses outlasted multiple flights, a fair few weddings, a full-frame upgrade and on one occasion a not-as-fatal-as-expected downpour. They catalogued a 366 project (since it fell over the leap year), Olympic Torch Relays, a fantastic trip to Rome, my wedding planning, and the birth of my daughter.

That’s about where it fell apart.