The best camera is…
Inverlounin Beach. Summer.
As most photographers would say, the best camera is the one you have with you. I get the point, but I’m not entirely sure it’s true. The best camera, assuming you have at least one with you, is the one that captures the scene in the way you intend it to be viewed. I’ll take a step back to explain what I mean.
Our existence in this remote* coastal village in Scotland involves all the usual things people do day-to-day, mixed with many hours doing voluntary work, and some hours trying to develop my photography business. We now live permanently in what was for a short period of time, our holiday home - a modest, terraced house with small lawns front and back. A stone’s throw from the loch and a stoned stagger from the pub. Upon early semi-retirement, we downsized, sold most of our possessions, and committed to a simpler life. I’ve recently re-read a year’s worth of Wordpress blog entries from that period, now over 10 years ago. A little cringeworthy, but authentic nevertheless. With a bit of tech wizardry, I could probably import them into here, just for giggles. What’s telling is that while not a vast amount has changed, some aspects of our lives here have crystallised. We’ve grown into our place, and the hopes and ambitions of those of those exciting, anxious times have inevitably settled into something approaching normal life.
*It’s not really remote, being just an hour and a half from Glasgow, but it’s a bit of an effort to get to.
Two factors from those early posts struck quite a chord:
The somewhat idealistic bubble of a completely novel, wonderful sense of community, didn’t quite burst, but it gently deflated to a more realistic perspective. Every city, town, and village has its kings and its fools. People are just people, and just because you’ll know most of them by name in a small community, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like them, or they, you. Some will disappoint you. Some will become the dearest of friends, and your respective lives will be richer for it. When I see similar levels of enthusiasm in those just arriving in the village to embark on their next chapter, I can’t help but wince a little about the lessons that will undoubtedly be learned. Small communities are not Legoland. They’re not to be preserved in a glass case and revered. Some of this is undoubtedly just me reverting to my introverted type. I’m never going to be gregarious. Don’t kid yourself King.
A more positive realisation was an obvious desire to rediscover my creativity. Those old posts describe meticulously curated art materials (yet to be opened). My diversion from being an habitual further education student in maths, computing, and sciences, to go on to study garden design, helped me along that journey (I still occasionally design people’s gardens). Finally, it was photography where I found my home. I’ve always had cameras, from a tatty Zenit E film camera, via Sony’s early forays into the mirrorless world with an Alpha 55, a few compact cameras, through to a Canon 6D mark ii, and finally(?), my Fuji babies. What I hadn’t quite unlocked then was photography’s creative potential. And now I absolutely love it.
On this typical volunteering day, we took our e-bikes and bag each containing secateurs and various tools to carry out a weekly inspection and minor repairs in a community garden and few kilometres of footpaths and nature trails. It’s a completely thankless task, but one for which, like many other local projects, my motivation is now rooted solely in pleasing my friends and visiting family members. Not having a big garden like many more fortunate locals, gives me a little time to devote to them. Having finished the chores, we cycled back, past our home and further onwards down the loch to the pebbly beach at the end of a private road. For the first time in weeks, the bland, lifeless skies developed some character, with moody clouds and isolated rain showers. It was a good photography day. But I had no camera, just my iPhone. I took a couple of shots of course. They’re fine for sharing on social media and maybe this blog post, but they aren’t good enough for my portfolio. It was certainly the best camera I had. But it was the wrong camera.
