Back to Basics.

I've been thinking about photography of late and the process of it. There's so much science behind it that we never see, the aperture, shutter speeds, ISO. So many people spend a bundle on cameras that do all this for them, having no idea what's actually happening when they press shutter release. DSLR owners are often guilty of this themselves, simply setting their two thousand euro camera to Automatic and then calling themselves "photographers". Sure, they might catch and amazing moment that will never be repeated but it still feels somewhat cheap to me. Since I was given my lovely, bog standard Canon last year I've been fascinated with the camera machine itself, the reason I wanted that camera in particular was so that I could learn it from the ground up. I now find myself just wanting to know everything I possibly can about cameras and how they work, how photos happen.

At the top of my shelf sits this; a Phenix DC303N. I picked it up for
around two hundred euro about five years ago when I was dipping my

toes in Fine Art and Photography for my portfolio. It weighs about as much as my car, has a fixed fifty millimeter lens that I don't see myself changing and a viewfinder eyepiece that's only held secure by gravity. I took some nice pictures with it when I was seventeen, including my favourite picture of my mother. It's a camera I never gave enough credit to when I first had it and now I can't help but admire it's charm. Every day when I leave for college it catches my eye and in ways it reminds me of my first days of college, in some ways it reminds me of (if you'll forgive such a shameless cliché), simpler times. I now feel that it's being taken for granted where it sits, like a guitar sitting unplayed. I think it's time to take a little break from my gorgeous, complex little Canon and take the old model out for a spin. I'm gonna pick up a few rolls of film and see what I can get with this. It could all turn out like crap, that's certainly possible, but we'll have some fun along the way and maybe learn a few things about cameras and how they work. Also hoping to pick up a book or two on photography at some stage and start teaching myself some new things. I find my latest pictures are starting to look a little samey so I'm going to need to start mixing it up soon. This is going to be interesting.