Seeing Again

Harlem

Lenox Coffee Poet

How can I explain to you how amazing it is to be able to rent a two to three hundred dollar camera lens for like twenty bucks? Unless you really love photography, it’s kind of difficult.  To me it’s up there with finding out last weekend that CUNY students get into the Whitney for free!!! FREE!  It’s twenty bucks to get into the Whitney. Non CUNY students pay sixteen! I can waltz up in there any time I want and the MOMA as well. You’re probably starting to understand what a nerd I am.

Back to the rented lens.  My cell phone camera has taken over my photographic output for over a year now. And I had been promising myself to get back to work with my DSLR but I have all these “I can’t untils” in my mind. I can’t until I get a newer, better camera or a newer better lens. I remembered a photographer who I met on a photo shoot telling me that you can rent cameras and I filed that information away for almost a year. I went online a few weeks ago to check out B&H and Calumet  online.  Renting camera bodies is expensive and they are rented out separately from lens. But it occurred to me I don’t really need an entire camera. I’ve been sweating a Nikon fixed prime lens forever and that’s all I really needed.  I've had my DSLR with me almost every day since I rented the lens and it makes me feel different.  It makes me feel legitimate. LOL! I love carrying it around and looking at things differently again.

My output with my Nikon is very different than with my cellphone camera. I think more about light settings, depth of field and color, because the world through a fixed prime lens is never flat. It’s magical and filled with layers and variations. So I do less but it feels like more because the quality of the exposure is higher and I can see that the image is a result of subtle choices I make.  There is of course the ongoing discussion as to whether cell phone photography can actually be considered to be art or critiqued on the same level as SLR or analog film photography. I think it’s about what tools you need to express or document what moves you. I love my cell phone camera and my tried and trusted collection of photography apps. But there are certain things that only a good SLR lens can do. And following really good photographers helps me to see things that inspire and motivate me towards lugging my camera around more often.  There are limits to it just as there are limits to cell phone photography but I welcome the perceived limits that push me to be more creative. Getting too comfortable with my cell phone camera was starting to make me feel like I’d reached a plateau with no challenges or surprises, no happy accidents.  An endless learning process is the only process worth sticking with for me.