A hike

Last week we went out for a hike again. The weather was beautiful and we had no appointments. So we packed our stuff to enjoy a small picknick and drove out. An hour later we were in a completely different environment. And we weren’t the only ones. It was actually quite crowed.

The hike we had in mind was one of 11km, in Wolfheze. The girls had not walked such a distance before but we were confident this would work out, also because of the lunchbreak we envisioned somewhere around 8km. But during the whole hike we did not find one picknick spot that was not occupied. At every spot there were people resting and having lunch. So we only took a small break for lunch and we marched on.

The girls were enjoying every minute of it, probably thanks to the change in scenery. Every couple of km’s the scenery changed, from a (for us) ‘normal forrest’, to a dense forrest with small dirt roads, from open plains to a little swamp. Very nice. Actually one of the best hikes in our neighborhood. We were satisfied, as were the girls.

All shot with the X-T1 and the XF35mmF1.4

 

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XF 60 approaching

This week I did not do a lot of shooting. Too engaged with other stuff. I did call Fuji repair service…

The XF60, which is in repair, I did not hear of yet after weeks. I called Fuji repair and was told I can expect an email today or tomorrow. That was a week ago. So Thursday I called again. Same story… Friday I called again starting with sharing the information they provided earlier. They told me the email would be send within minutes. They did: eur 98,- for the repair and shipping. I approved.

Now waiting for the save return of my ‘portrait lens of choice’.

I haven’t used the XF60 a lot lately. I used to love it, as I like the 35mm. I used your use it for portraiture primarily. The XF35 I used as an allrounder, including environmental portraits. I’m really curious if this will change when I get the 60 back from repair. Maybe I’ll stick with the 35mm for now.

The last couple of days it was raining. Autumn is coming. I love it. It’s such a special mood. Wind, rain, getting cold, but not too cold. Of all seasons I like Autumn best. And sure, I don’t like getting wet when in the rain, but with proper clothes, who cares!

Just a couple of last days. Nothing too fancy. Just some moments.
Again, all shot with the X-T1 and the XF35mm.

Lazy sunday

This was an easy one. No appointments today.
That is actually rare. So we had a slow start. Some exercises, a black coffee, a long hot shower, a lunch and then we drove off to get our heads into nature.

Amazing how the kids react to this. Amazing how we react to this. To feel the energy levels rising. And for that matter, this was just a couple of kilometers/miles. Nothing too fancy. But still. We love getting out in nature to stock the energy levels and luckily the kids love getting out as well.

All shot with the X-T1 and the XF35mmF1.4

 

Routine again? Not quite there yet.

Back to school. Back to work.
The kids are back at school. After 5 days of school, they didn’t even want the weekend off: We want to go to school daddy! The girls already have their own tablet for a couple of years now, at home. Old ones I used to have. This year, my eldest daughter (7) started using a tablet at school. She loves it. Probably they will turn into gadget freaks like me.

From a photography perspective it was a quiet week for me. Not shooting much. A little.
Posting some questions regarding printer settings and whether or not to convert to .dng, for archival purposes. Trying to optimize the workflow. Still need to run through 7000+ images in Lightroom, as a housekeeping task. I’ll get there. Amazing to see the stuff you’ve done, the style you used to have; how you’re evolving. Nice. Embrace change.

This time my ever ongoing research; my hunger for inspiration has let me to Trent Parke. I recall doing some research on him years ago when I was taking my photography course, in 2006 or so. His work really got to me. I loved his images, the feeling it evoked. High contrast black and white. Really gritty stuff. I haven’t thought about him for years.
Just a couple of days ago I stumbled upon some article of him. Found an impressive documentary on him. I recall seeing it in 2006. It still inspires me like crazy. Looking forward to buying a book of this guy, probably ‘Minutes to midnight‘. I would love to have that one.

Trent works on multiple projects. Taking a massive amount of pictures, every day. He admits spending more than 100 rolls of film to get an iconic shot. Amazing.

Trent inspires me to work on series. I’ve already started doing that, with my ‘Slices’ project, but Trent makes me want to work harder. He inspires me to take bring my camera more often and to take way more photos.

Below some slices of the last couple of days, all taken with the X-T1 and the XF35mm1.4 lens.  I really want to work on my skills to create a series of related photos and on the story telling part. In progress…

Rhythm. time. balance.

The kids are still enjoying the seemingly never ending holiday.
This means all kind of things… Lots of time, but then again: no time at all. Totally no rhythm and definitely no balance. Days packed with activities and being bored at the same time. Moods shifting from great joy to sadness in just a couple of seconds. An emotional rollercoaster. Next week school starts again.

 

 

Slices of the holidays

Some fond memories of our 3 week holiday in Autrans, France. We truly had a great time. Our girls, Lynn & Fleur, enjoyed themselves the whole day, making new friends at the playground or the swimming pool. Or we were hiking some cool mountain path, or exploring an ancient french village. When the kids were at the playground, my wife and I actually could read a book. That’s been a while.

The kids grow up really fast. I love seeing them develop their own style. That makes me really proud. It also makes me sad, sometimes, to notice how fast this all is happening. They are developing in such a rapid pace. Where’re my little girls?

Just after the holiday I bought 3 photo books and a printer. These photo’s will be included in the book so we can trigger our memories in the future.

Reset – Return – Add project.

We just returned from the family holiday. Three full weeks in a tent in Autrans, France. Such a luxury. Such a great time.

Besides the activities with the family, I did a lot of reading. And thinking.
I’m a person who can get really inside my head. Thinking about a lot of things, but all good. Just filled with energy. In a couple of weeks I’m starting with a new job at the office and I’m really looking forward to it. So that was in my head, sometimes. But most of the time I really did not think of work at all and thought about my family and photography. How to keep at ease when we’re returning of the holidays. Spending lots of time in nature, is one way to stay energized. The other thing is to do what you love, and in my case that’s photography and kayaking.

This blog is about my photography: Street Photography and Street portraits. I love it.
However, I find it difficult to be on the streets often enough to shoot on a regular basis. To be clear: I’m keeping the project, but the current progress isn’t giving me sufficient satisfaction. I’m commuting on a daily basis by car, which is great, but it does not get me ‘in to the city’ as public transportation would. I’m thinking of ways to adjust my thoughts on this, because there are other ways to capture street portraits and probably as well the way I’m commuting. I’m sure the output will increase soon.

But when I was thinking about this, another idea came to mind: create an additional project which does give daily opportunity. Luckily I’m with my family often. The family calendar is full. So why not capture daily live; the mundane. I’m going to commit to an additional project.

There are lots of way to document family live / daily live. I’ve given this quite some thoughts when on holiday. I’m not interested in capturing grand, precise and clear summaries of what I’m doing. I’m thinking more about triggers for my memory. Small slices of what I’m experiencing, what I see, what I feel. I want to capture those as a small series as well. That’s why, for now, I’ll call the project ‘Slices’.

A couple of examples which I made the last couple of weeks, all taken with the X-T1 and the XF35mm1.4, processed in Lightroom. I’m trying some new style here. This style is totally different then I’ve done before. The high contrast, black & white, very gritty style I’ve used most of the time, I’ll keep on using. But for this project it feels too harsh.
So I’ve tried to process in a more subtle way. Bit of muted style. Not sure if I’ll include black & white and color, or that I’ll stick with one type. Still fine tuning both processing styles, but I’m rather pleased with this muted look, so I’m close to capturing it as a preset.

Grenoble

A small series of photos of our trip to Grenoble. 

Al photos are taken with the Fujifilm X-T1 and the XF35mm1.4, using the film simulation ‘Monochrome+R’ setting. No other post processing has been done to the pictures.