The Trip: Germany/France 2017 (Lermoos, Austria)
The Story:
Sometimes young photographers get drawn too much into worrying about what gear will make good photographs; I think this is evidence that sometimes an eye for fleeting moments and whatever is at hand is more important. There are certainly critiques to be made about this image, but in my mind it is the best representation of the awesome landscape outside of Lermoos on this late afternoon. I was the passenger along 187 towards Garmisch-Partenkirchen shooting with my Nikon P7700. In between Nikon shots while it was writing to the card, I snapped this with my iPhone. It is a better composition than both the previous and following P7700 shots. Lermoos was notable enough that I will make it a stop next time, rather than just passing through.
While somewhat surprising given that the P7700 has been reliable, it isn’t without precedent to capture a good image on “lesser” equipment. As I wrote in my first post, I learned photography using a Minolta SRT-102 and fixed 50mm prime lens. While an SRT-102 was advanced for its day, it is not particularly fancy. With that combination, I made several memorable images, and later captured my Serendipitous San Francisco Reflection using a Maxxum 7 and 50mm prime. I even have a few pinhole images from senior year of high school.
Lately, I take my P7700 to work because it is much more convenient, and have had some success. It’s only been a casualty once so far, and luckily I was able to replace the damaged screen. I certainly enjoy my D700 and zoom lenses; there are many specific applications that would be impractical without them, but sometimes the challenge and joy is in not using them. Recently, I have acquired a Graflex Crown Graphic 45 and Polaroid film. From my initial tinkering, I can tell that it will be slightly different than the quick draw and snap that I am used to. I’ve been reading up on how it works; maybe I’ll have a few examples to share soon.
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