Colour

"Colour photography is largely magic, hiding in the bellows there live dozens of hobgoblins, some good, some evil." - Norman Parkinson

That quote really resonated with me and I had to put up a blog post before it slipped my mind.  It really speaks to the struggles I have with colour images and the love I have for colour.  I feel like sometimes I just can't win, but for the most part I am frustrated looking at black and white images that are so common today that lack the soul of what they should be, filled with no purpose and lots of neutral grey.  And yet that devilish colour is so attractive and beautiful. But you can't cheat a black and white photograph.  You either have the subject and the composition or you don't.  No getting distracted with yellows and oranges and bright green.  No mistaking what is important and what isn't.  And yet a black and white image is also more forgiving.  Sometimes.  Anyway, these hobgoblins are on my mind a lot so when I read Parkinson's quote I had to put it up.

A couple of gear related things, just because I know that's what you all want to hear.  :)

I held and played with the new Pentax Q camera yesterday in the store.  It reminded me of one of those old James Bond spy cameras I used to see advertised in the back of comic books when I was a kid.  It was small.  I was shocked how small it really was in my hands.  Too small.  Way too small.  I think that if there was ever a point where we have miniaturized things too much, this is it for cameras.  I couldn't even get a grip on the little thing without feeling like an Ox.  And for a guy, I don't have large hands.  It makes my Pentax W90 point and shoot look like a tank.  To be fair, I also held onto the new Olympus E-PL3, also too small and the lack of any sort of grip was unnerving to say the least.  At least the Pentax had a nice rubbery/leathery texture to the body which felt nice, the E-PL3 had a quality metal body, but felt flat and slippery.  The E-P3 which they also had in stock felt nice though, substantial in comparison.  This is just my impressions of holding the cameras, obviously I haven't used them outside of a camera store.

I did however get a chance to bring my E5 to it's first wedding last weekend on a day that was experiencing some heavy rain.  It ended up being sunny at the last minute but I used the camera anyway and loved it very very much.  So much so that it made me consider ditching the Canon 7D but memories of last years problems carrying two sets of lenses (at the time for the Olympus E3 and Canon 5DmkII) quickly changed my mind.  The focus was reliable (I'm still at times unnerved by the 7D's lack of consistent focus) and the images were magnificent.  The 50-200 Zuiko lens performed so amazingly well, and I think I might have forgotten how much fun it was to pull out that 8mm fisheye lens on occasion.  The introduction of the E5 to my work was so refreshing I couldn't help but to use it for some business portraits the last two days using both the Leica Summilux lens and the 50-200 in the studio.  At ISO 200 and for web sized or small print publication, the camera has more than enough juice and it's screen (lcd) and viewfinder are a dream.  Oh Olympus, it's too bad you are running away from this camera.  But I understand the business sense that is forcing you to do so.

Thanks again for dropping by the blog.  I'll be back again soon, just as soon as I get through another rush of work and editing.

Oh Kirk Tuck made a post on his blog that was really wonderful a few days ago.  It was one of those posts that I thought was probably getting glossed over by most readers simply looking for gear reviews.  Yes our photographs are reflections of our own unique versions of the world, and if that doesn't leave you feeling naked in public then you aren't trying hard enough.  It's a short post, go read it if you have a minute.