The title is perhaps clickbait but it complements my thought process.
I had a haircut this morning and as I sat down one word came to mind: professional. Two young men from I think Algeria running a small barbershop at the local mall.
The barber recognized me from my previous job and we started discussion food, businesses and he told me about his brother who operates the local branch of a franchise selling vetkoek.
The idea of being professional in your job, whether you work for yourself or someone else is an important concept. A lot of people I worked with during the years tended to stop caring about this aspect because they didn’t like the job. My thinking was always you never know who is watching.
When you are professional at work it tends to [hopefully] trickle into other areas of your life. You manage your situation at work and so to your photography business. You manage your website or newsletter professionally and feel inspired to apply this approach to other pursuits.
Being professional has a knock on effect which we don’t always see or understand.
The past few nights I used a 18-55mm lens to capture images for my Apartments project. The focal length here is 55mm, f/6.3 and a shutter speed of 25 seconds. It has been cropped to a 1:1 ratio.
I like this image because of the primary colors and the shapes. The big square formed by the smaller squares draws my eye to these specific windows in the complex. In the top left hand corner is another sliver of light. It’s the bathroom window of the apartment at the very top on the left.
I don’t like this image because of the angle of the roof. Nothing can be done about it but with a tighter crop I could remove it but it adds some type of perspective on the building. Without it I think the windows might just ‘float’ in the darkness. Similarly the window to the left is a bit distracting. A better crop could probably also solve this issue.
Auto-focus problems.
I was out early this morning with my Kodak camera. It struggles with auto-focus when there aren’t enough light. These ‘mistakes’ do however make for some interesting photos.
Perhaps these aren’t as much problems as they are me just not waiting for the auto-focus to find its spot. I could play around with it in future, see it as an increase in shutter speed?
This finishes of my post for today. Wishing you a great Sunday and a blessed week ahead. The latest edition of my newsletter is out today and I talk about a fog filled morning in April. If you’re not a subscriber you can find my Substack here.
Thanks for reading : )