Photography

I’ve Lost My Photo Mojo

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Once upon a time, there was a camera in my hand every weekend off to explore and shoot. The camera was my passport and I went everywhere with it, including dangerous places I wasn’t “supposed” to go. I’ve noticed in the past year, however, that I just can’t be bothered. This bothers me. There is always something to shoot and yet, around here, I’ve seen it all and captured it. The last time I was excited about photography was on a return trip to New Orleans last year with the new Sony A7 mirrorless camera. But once again, it was ho-hum. The city wasn’t exciting as it used to be. The camera was just another camera.

For the past 365 days, I’ve tried shooting with only the Hipstamatic every day during “Snappy Hour”– that last hour before sunset with the golden rich colors. Yeah, it was a project but looking back now to me it was…boring.

Popular camera magazines have turned their printers off. A major photography website has shut down after 25 years. Most photographers are tired of watching or reading the same format hyped by journalists regarding the.next.big.thing. When you read/watch reviews of cameras you always hear about megapixels, shutter speeds, battery life, blah, blah, but not what sort of images are produced. No soul, just technology. There is more to photography than a large sensor or post-production digital editing.

I miss the hours spent with the film camera process of loading the film, advancing the next exposure, creating negatives, selecting the best images out of only 36 exposures and then running the images through the chemical fixer. Ahh those darkroom chemical smells!

Hold on…just spilled some pipe tobacco on the MacBook. Okay, where was I? I miss portrait photography in the way I want to make it. No wait, that’s for another post. Ahh yes, the wrap-up:

How do I get my mojo back? Do I go back to analog film photography and spend hundreds of dollars on film and film development? There is something to be said about the analog results- they have soul. Or do I sell most of my digital cameras and focus on just the one? Those brilliant but souless photos are more cost effective.

With the proper tools, anyone can make brilliant photos on the iPhone, but the computational photography takes a lot of the soul out of it too.

I am tired of the documentational photographs I’ve been shooting lately. I want to get back to making art. Maybe only then I can get my photo mojo back(?)

Stolen Moments

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A camera offers gentle reminders to slow down and enjoy life’s simple moments as they happen. After a while you start to notice the little things, something I would’ve overlooked had I not taken up photography.

A walk through the early fog

Photo Film Is Expensive

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With Kodak raising (again), the price of their film stock, it doesn’t make sense to use recreationally anymore. Over the years, I have developed presets inside of Adobe Lightroom to apply to my images. These presets convert a digital image I’ve captured into a film emulator. I am very pleased with the results. Of course, you can always tweak the settings to suit you. I am giving serious consideration in releasing these presets for a low cost of 10 presets for $10. Let me know if interested by commenting below.

Kodak Gold 200
Ilford HP5+

Cropping My Photo Gear

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Just how good is the iPhone as a camera? Good enough for someone like me, a photographer for over three decades, want to sell off almost all of his gear. It is that good. I just sold off the mirrorless Sony A7 and am looking at other options to sell off the 35mm cameras and film. With film prices going up (again!) a few days ago (thanks Kodak), film developing is no longer in the budget. I am keeping Nikita, the Nikon D90 because she is one of my all time favorites. The Canon will stay here to be used by MissAdventure. The Minolta 110mm is staying because I have to have at least one film camera for nostalgia, right? Right. Shut up.

Sold: Nikon D200, Sony A7

Selling: Nikon D50, Holga 120mm, Pentax K1000 35mm, Nikon F35mm, Canon SureShot 35mm, Lomo Diana 110mm, Polaroid Instant 600 (2), Fujifilm Instax

Keeping: Nikon D90, Canon Rebel T6, Minolta 110mm

Most of the gear is listed here:

Photo Denbow – Gear
Lifestyle Photography
Photo Denbow

The iPhone 13 Pro Max

I need minimal gear. I’ve gone all-in on so many cameras, lenses, & accessories over the years, it makes me wonder what I could have done with all that money spent. Here is where minimalism, or essentialism kicks in: the iPhone. This device checks all of my requirement boxes.

Process

  • Portable
  • Anywhere
  • Anything
  • Built in lighting
  • Minimal
  • Consistent style of shooting

Photography gear

  • One camera- iPhone
  • Three interchangeable lenses, maximum
  • Carry-case for said lenses

Set of three Moment Lenses, our Phone Case, and a Lens Pen.
Save some cash! Get a set of any three of our lenses, perfect for capturing more than you could with your phone alone, plus our Phone Case, Lens Pen and a Strap
MomentMoment

I am eagerly awaiting my recent purchase of the Moment brand lens starter set to upgrade my iPhonetography. The wide angle, telephoto and fisheye lenses are going to be a joy to use. Check it out ^.

With forced limitations that come with minimal gear comes new chances for me to get more creative for the desired results.

Because I am cropping my gear, I feel like a huge weight is off my shoulders. Literally. I don’t need to make gear choices anymore. Everything is minimized and maximized for mobile photography.

Do you use all your gear? Could you benefit from a gear resizing too?

Goodbye Adobe

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After decades of relying on Adobe photography software to host, edit and organize my archive, it is time to say goodbye. Photoshop and Lightroom are second to none with one exception- a subscription. With all the competition out there in this space, I can no longer justify $120 annually for it. Yes, they’ve hosted my photography website too, but I am moving on.

In a frequent effort to manage my tools and workflow, I am in downsizing mode. Call it minimalism or essentialism. I’ve discovered Mylio, a software tool that organizes your archives quickly and more efficiently than Adobe.

🔗
My write-up on Mylio is here: https://www.chrisdenbow.website/mylio-photo-organizer/

Last year I paid a one-time fee for Pixelmator Pro which is baked right in to the Apple ecosystem so much, I am surprised Apple hasn’t bought them out.

Last month I re-upped my Flickr photo-hosting membership. This is where my images can be discovered online as opposed to my old photography site (PhotoDenbow.com)

Apple Photos is of course, on all the iDevices that I own and synced flawlessly through iCloud. With 2TB of cloud storage, I am good for awhile there too. Besides, it is a joy to view the images in there. It reminds me of the old film contact sheets we used in the darkroom before making prints.

All of this is subject to change, without notice and usually on a whim. But for now, I am confident that this will help save money and lighten the workflow.

UPDATE 3/3 – That didn’t last long. I renewed the membership, if only to get the Adobe Portfolio web hosting that comes with it. Every other web host is $$.

Mylio Photo Organizer

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How the hell did this software program help organize thirty years of my photography archives in under an hour? Download, install and sign up for the 30-day free trial. And we’re off!

Import From External Drives

I plugged in my 10TB external hard drive and pointed to where I wanted the photo copies stored inside Mylio. I am ecstatic to see all those decades of images in one library. Next I added the Archive Backup hard drive and did the same thing.

Import From The Mac

Next, I started importing photos from folders on my Macbook Pro. Not much there since I send the previous month’s images to the Archives. Example: Only February 2023 is in the Photos Folder on the Mac.

Import From Apple Photos

Every image that is currently in Photos gets copied to Mylio instantly. A great addition to the 2TB iCloud storage and backup.

Import From Flickr, Instagram, Facebook, Google Photos with Mylio

Ever since downloading all the photos I have posted to those social media accounts and then deleting those accounts, I have stored them away for safekeeping. The time has come where I have the ability to see them all in one place. Everything is organized by year and month. Boom.

Mylio breaks down all the file types, the quantity and the size. That’s a lot of data!
Which camera or lens did I use the most? It rhymes with “chapel.”
Where are all those photos of Boca chica beach? Well, just click and discover.

Organize, Sync, Backup

After adding all your photos, Mylio has a variety of ways to help organize. Date, keywords, favorites, geotagging etc. Once organized, Mylio syncs to the vaults stored on all of your devices.

Editing

I haven’t played around with this too much because of the other, more professional tools I use but the capability to make basic edits is baked into Mylio.

Conclusion

This is a fantastic solution, one I wish I had discovered sooner. It is a time-saver, a life-saver and alleviates a lot of self-induced frustration at my lack of digital asset management. Once everything was imported and sorted, I then clicked “subscribe.” Yes, it is another subscription, but it ticked all the boxes for my requirements of photo archive management.