photography and me

In reverting to using my original online identity of brumph on the fediverse, my home timeline contains a lot of photos again. This is to be expected because when I started the account, sharing my photography was primarily what I used it for. 

A lot of my follows were photographers who had liked and followed the account because they liked the photos I posted, and I followed a lot of them back. This morning there seemed to be a load of intentional camera movement (ICM) photographs being posted, which was an area of photography I used to favour because of how unexpected and surprising the results could be.

This all got me reflecting on my history with photography. I don't like being labelled as anything really - 'a photographer' or 'a cyclist' doesn't allow for all the nuances of how deeply or not you are these things as just a part of your whole - but for my entire working career (before I retired hurt) I was a part of the photographic industry.

Career
I started as an assistant at a specialist photographic retailer when I was just eighteen years old. At that age, and probably what got me the job, I was enthusiastic about photography, and I'd owned an SLR type camera since I was twelve. I had joined a local photo club, the youngest member among a collection of what I'd tell my parents were 'mostly old fogies', who were probably the age I am now. They discussed 'techniques', had tea and biscuits and held club competitions, which I never won because the club chairman and his wife seemed to be very lucky at winning these things. 

But I read all the magazines at the time. I amassed knowledge of all the cameras and lens brands, and the way my brain worked back then, I could recall the specs of pretty much all of it like some sort of human database, before computers and even electronic point of sale in shops was a thing.

My brain doesn't work like that any more. I can't remember what Mrs B said to me ten minutes ago now. Weirdly though, I can tell you the size of filter thread that a Sigma 75-300mm zoom was on the 1987 model (58mm... both the standard and APO versions of it) and which battery the Pentax ME Super needed to work (depending on manufacturer, 2 x SR76. Or they could be called 10L14's, or 375's, but most SLR cameras of the time took them, and we sold hundreds per week, so that's easy).

I talked about photography equipment all day and sometimes six days a week, to absolute novices throwing themselves upon my encyclopedic knowledge of cameras, lenses, accessories, anything photographic equipment wise you can think of. Also to professional studio, sports, news or social photographers, and to people who were specialists in a very narrow niche such as property, heritage restoration and archaeological or archival photography.

Then I left the shop after about 18 years there (manager responsible for all three branches by then) and went on to work for Minolta as a Sales Manager, at the time one of the worlds 'big five' camera brands. It was at the cusp of the digital photography revolution, and they were preparing to launch one of the most eagerly awaited camera model ranges, the DiMAGE range, the flagship 7 model coming with a huge 5 megapixel resolution.

Of course, that looks pretty funny now. But it was very cool to be in possession of, and using myself when not working, a sample of every new model that came out, sometimes a month before the stock started shipping to the shops I'd been around in my area to take orders from, and getting in the hands of the eager gear enthusiasts.

Of course, digital photography was a fast changing technology, and it took a type of database brain like mine to store all of the new equipment specifications and compatibilities we had to take in and learn. Now there was software too, and firmware updates. The Sales Managers were the point of reference for all the dealers who phoned with customer needs and questions, and we faced them ourselves at trade shows and exhibitions nationally.

I kept my job through the merger with Konica, but having been diagnosed with MS I was made redundant (definitely in an entirely unconnected and legal way, probably) about a year later. A year after that even Konica-Minolta was gone, with the enthusiast and professional camera division, product development engineers, research departments and manufacturing being sold in its entirety to Sony.

Photography
It was only when I had finished there, and with some other jobs I'd taken in the industry (including going back to manage the camera shop), and was in recuperation after my stroke, that I started to take any pictures myself seriously. Through all of that working in the industry, I'd never really been as much of a photographer as I had been in my early years. I'd just sold the boxes of gear and taken the money it generated. I'd always been a camera enthusiast and owned many different ones, due to the shop's generous used equipment discount scheme, but a weekend doing photography was still a rare thing compared to how much I talked about it.

When I started taking pictures again, it became clear that I gravitated to taking black and white landscape, and to experimenting with the aforementioned ICM. Playing with image files on a computer also had a diverting and absorbing appeal, a rough equivalent of the darkroom skills I never had personally - although I'd sold loads of gear for others doing it over the years. 

It also fitted well when I was less mobile with my MS. I could sit and play with some image variations on a PC screen when I couldn't walk and balance so well.

I started a website. I shared some pictures on my socials. I even sold some through a couple of the print-on-demand website shops. I got some incredible publicity once from having my website featured as one of the monthly highlighted sites on WordPress, which boosted my confidence by having a few thousand visits and likes coming in on an intense day or two.

Then something wondrous happened. A lady in her eighties I knew locally, and had gone out with to take some landscape photos with occasionally, was a fan of my website and photography. She contacted me and insisted I take her entire Sony DSLR outfit as a gift, simply because she was changing to Nikon. I said no, you sell it to help cover the cost of your new kit, I'll help you do the ads and stuff, but she sent me a message "Don't make me come to your house and make you have it. It's yours. Come and collect it." 

OK. There is a stage where you don't argue with strong eighty year old characters like her. It was mine.

I totted up the value of it all when I was cataloguing the whole kit, with about seven lenses, spare batteries, flash unit and various bits. I could have simply eBay'ed the lot for about £10,000. I'd never considered owning this sort of gear, and now I did. It was mind-blowing generosity. All she wanted in return was for me to 'make use of it like it deserves to be used'.

And I did, for about two years.

Dormant
But I've been photographically dormant again for well over a year now. Nearly two. I still posted the occasional image but they were years old stuff, not new. The enthusiasm had just upped and departed.

It has coincided with a period of bad health and enforced resting. To be fair, I was never the most committed of amateur photographers. Never the sort who get up at the crack of dawn, or travel around scouting locations to come back to in the golden hours. The making images bug had been tailing off again before the health things really hit. My freelance income suffered while I was ill, so burning fuel on possibly fruitless trips was off the menu, and I was often too weak and too tired to even consider going out on a photo mission. I closed my online shops down and shuttered the website because I could see I'd have nothing fresh to offer.

A lot of it is physical capability, I haven't been well, but because I have MS, I'm always not well. It's not always completely disabling, but balance and strength, and simply the amount of walking and mental processing I can do in a day, is always finite.

I look at the camera bag as I go out the door sometimes and think "Do I need to be carrying all those extra kilos today?" to which the answer is normally "Nah." It's just too heavy for me to take on the off chance I'll get inspired by something.

But I feel a bit guilty about it as the kit inside it is only there due to the old lady who just wanted it to be 'used like it deserves to be used'.

I'm seeing all those photos on my social feed today, and I'm thinking, you know, I miss doing that stuff. I have the odd idea. I know how to do it. Can I be arsed to go out and do it? Perhaps it's just another problem in my head to get over.

I don't want to post things I've already posted too much, so maybe I'll try to get past the mental and physical barriers again and try to get over my various blocks. Maybe.

---

There are still a handful of images on a Pixels store if you're interested to see a few more. For anything else new happening, well, watch this space. Or if you're on the fediverse, maybe watch that one. Link below somewhere ↓.