…is becoming someone with no soul.<\/p>\n
My definition of soul is different; my soul relates to passion; and passion is something you do out of love and not for money.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
(That may also apply to some otakus<\/i>, or people obsessed with Japanese culture, most specifically anime.)<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I scare myself.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, with my camera geek-out buddies, I wonder what we used to talk about.<\/p>\n
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?<\/i>” and understand how to proceed accordingly.<\/p>\n
I used to think I was interesting and funny, too.<\/p>\n
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!<\/i>” 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.<\/p>\n
(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.)<\/p>\n
Which gets to my gripe on, well, destructive photography.<\/p>\n
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<\/b> 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.)<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I still don’t have a car.<\/p>\n
I’m trying to save up… but I’m also trying to save up to geek out.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.)<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I don’t live within 5 minutes to an LRT station, oh dear spoilt brats.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The mirror locked up… and waited… and went back down.<\/p>\n
“I think the shutter speed is a bit too long.<\/i>”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
There, see, I’m talking about photography again.<\/p>\n
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<\/b>, look at my shot (also known as chimping<\/i>) and find that it was a great shot. From then on, I feel encouraged and inspired to shoot more such shots after that.<\/p>\n
I quite hate the suffix Photography<\/i>, (or Through The Lens<\/i> or any photography cliche) especially when I’m reading a blog and seeing all soul-less, badly composed pictures.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Heck, I find such suffixes to almost certainly jinx it for me. Too many people adding Photography to their namecards.<\/p>\n
My name is Albert, and I have an obsession with cameras.<\/p>\n