…is becoming someone with no soul.

My definition of soul is different; my soul relates to passion; and passion is something you do out of love and not for money.

My great fear is becoming a person so one-dimensional. You know those friends from long time ago who have become multi-level marketers? Yes. They have no soul. They speak of nothing else.

(That may also apply to some otakus, or people obsessed with Japanese culture, most specifically anime.)

I fear that I have become obsessed. About cameras (not the art of photography, mind you.) Before I sleep, I use Opera on my Nokia N70 to Google something camera-related. Yes, something just pops out of nowhere on my inquisitive mind.

My friends, whom I used to talk about anything with (except politics and current affairs), when I find out they have an interest in photography… I end up always falling back on the topic of it. I’m throttling through new things at warp speed.

I scare myself.

I am glad when I have close friends or colleagues who do not share interest in cameras. We then speak of other things, but I’m still appalled at myself at how shallow I get. We gossip about real people (gossipping about celebrities is passe) and talk about girls and sex.

Sometimes, with my camera geek-out buddies, I wonder what we used to talk about.

I used to pride myself in being able to converse of the abstract. Social constructs. Music. Life or the lack thereof. Random theories. However, the older I get, and the older the crowd gets, I find myself trying hard to catch up. I never liked being asked about my academic plan back when I was in school or college. Only after all that was over could I ask, “So, what do you do?” and understand how to proceed accordingly.

I used to think I was interesting and funny, too.

Okay, honestly, I still think I have it. I still think I kept it real. However, I fear one day the obsession will go overboard. I mean, it was still cute when this photography geek dude went “WHOOOAAA the skies are so blue! So saturated!” and proceed to stop and snap skies in the middle of KL. I just hope I won’t carry a wireless flash around and assign friends to hold them in position while I shoot something.

(Yes, I am not completely against the idea of buying a wireless flash; you know the geek in me is hankering for the Sony HVL-F56AM.)

Which gets to my gripe on, well, destructive photography.

I’ve always been of the opinion that I should respect the natural or artificial lighting the sun or moon or lighting crew has given us. I shall not blind a subject. I don’t like taking pictures of performers looking at me and smiling because I, well, I am supposed to be an observer capturing a moment in life’s movie, not in the picture (though technically behind it.)

I also would not pick up a snail to put it on a rock so it would look more artsy. I’d wait for the snail to get into a position that would make better composition.

I still don’t have a car.

I’m trying to save up… but I’m also trying to save up to geek out.

Even after getting a car, I’ll still walk around town, around the ghetto, because that’s where I got my street walking shots from. Back before I had a camera, I’d walk in the streets, downtown KL, and see something and wish I had a camera. I could imagine the catchy captions for them already.

I don’t like going out for the sole purpose of being on a photoshoot. (Also because I have shitloads of pictures and blog entries to clear!) I like carrying my camera around in case I saw something.

So, I’ve gotta walk. If I didn’t wait at the Segambut KTM station, I would not have shot goats. If I didn’t walk home from the bus stop after the rain, I would not have spotted many many snails coming out to play. (I haven’t blogged about those.)

I feel like a hippie walking around with long hair, looking like a scraggy youth myself, blending in. Save the environment! Quit congesting the roads! Quit adding smog to the city!

It is also said that riding a bicycle for a kilometer requires the energy of one egg. Walking requires two eggs. A bus engine takes 7 eggs to carry you. Driving takes 35 (the engine, not you… so you won’t lose weight driving). Or something like that, I really don’t remember and can’t seem to Google it.

I don’t live within 5 minutes to an LRT station, oh dear spoilt brats.

I remember meeting a chick with a Canon EOS 400D. I popped my Hoya R72 infrared pass filter on her Canon 50mm F1.8 MkII, laid it on a table, pointed to a sunny garden and shot a test shot to see how infrared would turn out.

The mirror locked up… and waited… and went back down.

“I think the shutter speed is a bit too long.”

She didn’t know I put an IR filter in front. I don’t know why, but that was a turn on. Knowing that she could tell without looking.

When camwhoring in noisy places, I can tell by how far the focusing ring is whether it is focused close or accidentally focusing on the background. I think I am cool, that way.

There, see, I’m talking about photography again.

I’m still a bit shy around the term ‘photographer’. I am, in all essence, a camera geek primarily, photographer second. I don’t get nice shots all the time. I only start getting them once I shoot one magic shot, look at my shot (also known as chimping) and find that it was a great shot. From then on, I feel encouraged and inspired to shoot more such shots after that.

I quite hate the suffix Photography, (or Through The Lens or any photography cliche) especially when I’m reading a blog and seeing all soul-less, badly composed pictures.

If a picture has bad composition, but has soul (in my definition, it captures the emotion and moment or shows an expression) then it passes by my book.

Heck, I find such suffixes to almost certainly jinx it for me. Too many people adding Photography to their namecards.

My name is Albert, and I have an obsession with cameras.

(This blog entry was somewhat sparked off by Yee Hou’s rant.)