photography as a record

I think that was one of the first intentions for photography. Well, in the end, there're really only two intentions for it - art, or record-keeping. Everything else is just some mix of either in various proportions... Journalism, art photography, whatever, all that.

Lately, I haven't been really feeling it. My super-compact k-5 has been feeling like a tank to bring around, and excuses are abundant as to why I should just stay home instead of go out for a photowalk. The routine's grown stale, really. go out, shoot, go home, edit. Upload, bask in comments, get a bit of an ego fix on that, rinse repeat.

I think I'm slowly growing out of that though. I think I'm slowly making photography more for me. I'm barely just uploading the photos I take, and pretty much not posting them to forums or anything at all anymore. who cares what other people take, cause so much of what I take at this point is just a record of my life. The places I've been, the people I've come to know and love, the things I do, the times I've had. The thing is, a dSLR isn't really that great a camera for that. A cell phone, much better. And that's another thing that I'm starting to change up - image quality. I'm caring less and less about the pixel level of the photo, and just seeing the photo itself. It's blurred, it's out of focus, but it's a goddamn funny moment and I am uploading right now. Or, y'know, stuff like that.

Maybe it's just gear lusting, but the olympus e-p3 sounds really appealing. Especially with a 12mm f2 - I really do crave a fast wide angle. And the m4/3 system doesn't have a ton of lenses, but it's got the 3 I need - fast wide, fast normal (Leica 25mm f1.4), and fast portrait (Oly 45mm f1.8). And its art filters are supposed to be quite great too. Now, coming from a RAW-only shooter, art filters wtf ?! But. I dunno. I just feel burnt out on editing, burnt out on deciding whether I wanna go all-out or just a "natural" look, burnt out on having a backlog of photos waiting to be edited. On the other hand, just having some quick presets that I can tweak around a bit sounds pretty appealing. Straight-to-fb.

But, that's the kind of camera I'd love to have. Bring it everywhere, just a bit better quality than a phone, but not so amazing that I'll worry the second it's not perfectly sharp. And the autofocus is quick and accurate, again, taking worry off of the mind of someone whose equipment has to function absolutely perfect. I can take  everyday photos, record-of-my-life types with it. I can bring it on the road with me, I can take it for photowalks for "serious" shoots too. God, I'm getting myself all worked up for this camera and I haven't even decided if I'm actually going to go for it yet. If my future shop gets it in stock I'll have to try it out a bit first, we'll see. Also, just saw this, and not gonna lie, that's pretty hot.


I'm hungry.