While I never need to hear “you have the best job in the world” ever again, we do get to go to some cool places and do some interesting things. Then we go back to the hotel room or apartment and spend hours fine-tuning words and photographs, while those on holidays get to fire off a tweet or put up a happy snap on Instragram. Or even on a wall on Facebook, so I’m told*.
While we primarily shoot photos and write for good old-fashioned print publishing, the thrill of seeing a beautiful double-page spread story opener is often blunted by the fact that there can be several months or even a couple of years between pressing the shutter button or tapping the keyboard and seeing the images and type on pages.
I don’t use Twitter very much any more because Instagram is a better fit for me as a photographer. Kind of…
I like letting people know what we’re up to via images taken while we’re at photo shoots or just on the road. Although shooting and editing photographs on an iPhone can be a challenge, shooting photos on an iPhone while juggling two DSLRs in a seaplane over Sydney is just plain silly.
You don’t want to miss a photo with your DSLRs that could end up in print, but you still want to show people how ‘wow’ your experience is. I enjoy communicating this way.
The problem with Instagram is that a lot of people cheat by taking photos with their DSLRs, editing them in Lightroom or Photoshop, and uploading them to Instagram without acknowledging what they have done. That’s disingenuous.
If I can’t shoot a snap for you on the iPhone without sacrificing time I could be shooting the shots I’m getting paid to shoot on the DSLR, then this is what I’ll do below (i.e. take an iPhone pic from the back of the DSLR) if I still want to communicate what I’m up to. Why? Because I’m not going to waste a minute with subjects of the likes of David Chang by trying to make a decent iPhone image.
About the seaplane photo above
Most people would consider the overcast conditions on the day I took the shot from the seaplane to not be so great, whereas I liked the clouds reflected on the water. They gave the landscape an eerie look, especially as we flew over Pittwater, north of Sydney. So far it’s the most liked photo I have on Instagram, so I guess it was worth the camera juggling…
Details: Apple iPhone 4, @ F2.8 @ 1/363th second @ ISO80.
* Yes, I have a Facebook account. No, I don’t use it because I loathe the clumsy interface and their deliberately opaque privacy policies. Yes, I understand that Facebook owns Instragram, but so far, so good.
4 comments
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Puru
September 5, 2012 at 11:45 pm (UTC 10) Link to this comment
Ah Ah ! I am a sucker for good photographs and I must say that your seaplane photograph was a great one ! And yes, you have the best job in the world
Lara Dunston
September 6, 2012 at 10:26 pm (UTC 10) Link to this comment
Thanks for the kind words about the photograph! If you saw us now – sitting at our desks all day, looking out at Bangkok out the window, and hungry, cause we haven’t had time to eat since breakfast – you would *not* be saying that we had the best job in the world, believe me. But thanks for dropping by!
Ana
September 12, 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC 10) Link to this comment
Were those boats moving? Or were they parked? Either way, great picture!
Terence Carter
September 12, 2012 at 10:02 pm (UTC 10) Link to this comment
Cheers. Most of those boats are just used on the weekends, so 99% of them were moored…