Shooting Photos.

Cameras and guns seem to be inextricably linked in many people's minds. Consider common photo terminology: 'shooting' photos, people that go out 'hunting' with their cameras, 'firing off' a few frames. The use of cameras and guns is seen as analogous. (A few months ago, while I was 'shooting' in Cambodia someone remarked that they could tell I would be a good sharp-shooter, based merely on the way I always had my camera within easy reach 'ready for action'.)

But it's never a comparison that I've been particularly comfortable with. I've shot guns before (I've even shot competitively, though I was never any good.) and I would never, ever even begin to think of pointing a gun at a person. At the same time, most of my friends can attest to the annoying presence of my cameras in their faces at the most inopportune moments.

And then, while I was in Panama, I was introduced to a whole new way of looking at it. In spanish the verb often used to describe the act of photographing is 'tomar' (to drink). To drink photos. Drink, both in its sustaining, refreshing, nourishing sense and in the sense of 'drinking in the beauty' implying time taken to pause and appreciate something on a deeper level. The idea that photography allows one to experience something more fully. Drinking it all in... through your camera. And sometimes you go out with your little point and shoot, taking a sip now and then and other days it's a head thrown back, light splashing down your shirt, guzzling of photos until finally, gasping and choking, you have to stop and catch your breath.

Drinking is also our most basic of needs, prevented from eating, drinking or sleeping, you'll die of dehydration long before hunger (interestingly, lack of sleep will also kill you before hunger). Of course, this just makes the metaphor that much more appropriate, because if I couldn't take photos I'd probably die.

And one last thing that makes this analogy so appealing to me is that now, when I sit with my camera held lightly in my hand (as I often do), I no longer have to think of gripping the cold metal of a gun, but of a warm (and comforting) cup of tea. Though lately my camera has been more of a 1,000 frames-a-day Super Big Gulp.

Consider also that when it comes to sharing your photos, would you rather share something that lets your audience taste what you tasted? Or would you like to give them something that shows what you saw, or rather what you saw right before you shot (and killed) it? For me, photos are about conveying feeling, not about displaying trophies.

The gear so far

Five and a half months ago, before I started this trip, I did a little gearing up. I bought a new camera, a lens and some other odds and ends to add to my already considerable camera-harem (the collection can be seen here). The trip, which has so far taken me through 13 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, North and Central America and the middle of the Pacific has been a little rough on both me and my kit and I thought now would be a good time for a little update on how everything is going:

Cameras: I bought a 1D for the trip, planning to use my much-loved 20D as a second camera, shooting with both bodies most of the time. Alas, most days, my 20D sits unused, waiting until disaster strikes. And after years of shooting aperture priority on my canons, I've started shooting manual much of the time. A combination of harsh sun, dark skin and even-changing conditions that my aperture priority just couldn't keep up with. I find myself often setting my camera for the light conditions and then tweaking slightly for shadow or highlight detail. I'm getting much more control and much more consistent results... except when I step out from a dark hut into the bright sun and shoot a few frames of something that catches my eye before realizing that I've just over-exposed everything by 12 stops. But that's only happened a couple of times, I swear. Oh, and I noticed the other day that whenever I change cards in my camera, I instinctively shield the open CF slot from the sun. Anyone else do this? Or is it just me?

Lenses: I'm using a 17-40 f4, a 135 f2 and a 50 f1.4 (all Canon lenses). I expected to use the 17-40 the most (it's just the perfect lens for the kind of work that I'm doing) and, sure enough, I'm shooting almost 80% of my photos with it. It's been holding up fine, but I'm beginning to think the 16-35 f2.8 would have been worth the extra money. Also the 50 f1.4 (which I've been using less than I thought, but is still indispensable in low-light) was damaged in turkey (my first country!) and replaced in london a couple of weeks later. It's most likely repairable, I just don't have the time right now to get it fixed.

Cards: I'm shooting 2GB cards. I know I can get bigger ones, but it just seems like a good balance between not having to change them too often and not losing too many shots if I damage a card. I'm also backing things up to a battery powered 80 GB drive while I'm in the field, meaning that I can leave my laptop safely behind and go out shooting for a few days at a time. While the batteries on the drive will die long before I fill it up, I've discovered that, when things are busy, I can shoot 80GB of photos (about 10,000 shots) in 2 weeks.

Flashes: I packed a portable studio made up of a pair of light stands, umbrellas and vivitar 285s triggered by light slaves because I knew I'd be shooting in a lot of dark interiors. Well, one of the triggers died a few days into the trip (luckily I had a spare) and one of the 285s blew up a couple of months ago. Still not quite sure what happened, but it smelt like burning. I've also been having a tough time with the light slaves, they're just not as reliable as I need. So I just bought a pair of pocket wizard radio slaves. So now I can tuck a flash just about anywhere and trigger it from really far away. Like the moon. I also picked up a Bogen super-clamp before I left. I wasn't really sure what I'd do with it when I bought it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, it really proved it;s worth in Zambia and Malawi when I was able to clamp a flash to just about anything to light up dark hut interiors without having to worry about my light stands showing up in the shot. The only down side was that I only had one of them, but that was rectified a couple of months ago.

Computer and Hard drives: computer has held up like a champ, but the hard drives are waaaaay too small. Sadly, I can't buy a 5TB, 2.5 inch, bus powered fire-wire drive, so I'll have to make do with what I've got and just keep burning DVDs like a madman. Oh, and I ditched Aperture after the first few countries. Once you dump 10,000 images into it, it really starts to drag. I'm using lightroom now, and even with over 50,000 images in my current library, it's still running pretty smoothly.

Audio gear: the mic and recorder are performing great, though I haven't been capturing as much audio as I hoped. I'm trying to make more of an effort, but it the shooting is definitely the priority.

And the piece of kit that I'm using the least? my ipod. go figure.

It's Wednesday. Where am I?

This trip that I'm currently on, this 20 country sojourn to all corners of the world has been a great test to my last minute, slackadasical, planning-is-for-wusses travel style (which, thanks to the magical inter-web isn't the million-dollar-last-minute-booking-penalty nightmare that it used to be. In fact, in some cases, my complete lack of organizational skills has saved me a penny or two).
While things have been pretty smooth so far, I'm starting to notice the cracks. I arrived in Fiji a couple of weeks ago only to be informed that I would need an onward visa to Kiribati before they would let me on the plane, despite the assurances of the Canadian travelers website. So I was trapped in Fiji for a couple of days (many have pointed out that there are far worse places to be stranded). However, true to form, after a 4 hour bus ride to Suva I sorted out my visa in 15 minutes and secured a warm bed and hot shower at a stranger's house for my first unplanned night, caught up with an old room-mate, and then went and crashed with another friend before finally flying out for Kiribati two days late. All this despite never having been to Fiji before.
Or take my recent departure from Australia. I was in Brisbane as part of a 4 day/ 6 flight journey from Tarawa, Kiribati to Ulan Bataar, Mongolia (I'm sitting in Beijing, waiting to board the final flight to Ulan).
Anyway, my quest for the cheapest tickets meant that the whole trip was cobbled together from internet e-tickets, a travel agent in Brisbane and another agent in Kuala Lumpur, so when i arrived at the airport in Brisbane, ready to fly to KL and pick up my ticket to Ulan, I was told that, while I had a ticket out of Kuala Lumpur, travelers to Malaysia need proof of an onward ticket and unless I had physical proof of that ticket, they weren't going to let me on the plane.
I've long since learned that arguing this stuff, no matter how mistaken they may be (ok, technically they were right but in practice the onward ticket thing is a non-issue in Malaysia) is far more trouble than it's worth. So here I was, 90 minutes before my flight, with two eager baggage toting, form filling friends (who were beginning to show sleep-deprivation giddiness with one of them referring to them both as my 'minions') as my airport escorts, asking the Malaysian Airlines reps what I needed to do to get on the plane.

Malaysian Airlines Rep: Well, you just need to show us physical proof of an onward flight from Malaysia.
Me: Any flight?
MAR: Yes, any flight.
Me: Is there any internet access around here?

Brisbane international airport has no wifi (or none that I could find) but it does have a series of over-priced internet kiosks with broken mice and sticky keyboards strewn about the departures floor to steal your coins and mock your attempts to type. The catch of course is that once a ticket is booked on one of the infernal machines, how to show them? Drag the kiosk over to the ticket counter? Have them all come over and huddle around the machine? Brains were stormed, I toyed with the idea of shooting a photo of the confirmation screen and show it to them on my camera, but as luck would have it, one of the coin-stealing kiosks, tucked in a corner way at the back of the airport, has a printer plugged into it.
But time was quickly running out, so coins were inserted, keys were pounded, temperamental mouse buttons were sworn at, and I managed to book myself an Airasia ticket to Bangkok (I needed the ticket anyway, for my return from Mongolia, I just hadn't planned on booking it yet). Once I reached the confirmation screen, I pushed print, looked expectantly at the printer and... nothing.
cables were wiggled, little doors were opened and closed, more buttons were pushed and printers were even knocked about. still nothing.
It was at this point that airport escort #1 (and self-declared minion) stepped in and managed, in an effort to kick start the printer, to shut the whole kiosk down. The screen went blank, the computer rebooted and the printer remained silent.
Time was disastrously short and didn't really have much of a back-up plan. I was just beginning to accept that I may, in fact, be stuck in Brisbane for another day when the printer, no doubt pleased with its dramatic pause, sprang to life and began spewing forth printed pages of confirmed bookings of onward flights. Unfortunately, they weren't MY onward flights. Oh, and did I mention there were only 4 sheets of paper in the printer? right.
Of course, since I'm not typing this post from Brisbane, you all know that when that last piece of paper shot out of the printer, it had a reservation for an Air Asia flight from KL to Bangkok with my name on it. I grabbed my bags and ran back to the ticket counter to collect my boarding pass, minions in tow, with mere minutes to spare.

(footnote: I'm finally getting this post up after having sit on my computer for a couple of weeks. I'm currently stranded in Miami, having spent the past 24 hours here waiting for a flight to La Paz. I left Tel Aviv yesterday morning, flew to Madrid, missed my connection to Miami, was rerouted to New York where the connecting flight to Miami was delayed and by the time I arrived here I had missed my flight to La Paz by less than 30 minutes. After spending the night in an airport hotel (where I had to wash my unmentionables in the bathroom sink as my checked bag is still in airline custody) I'm back at the airport, ready to go.)

Hating Heathrow: It's not just me.

Well it's nice to know that someone reads this blog.