Yellow rose and American Goldfinch, both in our yard on Mother’s Day.

One change I’m trying is going back in time and using two old cameras for my personal photography.  I’m thinking about only using a Pentax K-3 with a couple of zoom lenses (a 10 year old camera) when I need a longer focal length; but mostly concentrating on using a Fujifilm X-Pro 2 camera (eight years old) with a prime lens for as much of my work as possible.  I just wanted to use simple cameras I liked rather than higher end “computer-driven cameras” as I start phasing down to photography appropriate for an old man.  I’ll continue to photograph Homewood activities with my micro 4/3 gear, at least for a while, but I might switch some of that work to my X-Pro 2.

Another change is walking less due to a problem with my knees.  I’ll rethink this change after I get through many weeks of physical therapy and get a reevaluation from my doctor in about six weeks.  As it gets hot and humid and I continue with my physical issues, the impact will be less photography and blog posts in the interim.  I do have an idea for accommodating my issues, but it will take a while to check it out. I have tried smaller and lighter micro 4/3 gear and it hasn’t been as satisfying from a photographic perspective.

Another change that I have wanted to do for some time is to do something different than taking the same pictures during my walks around Homewood and then posting them frequently.  I want to do a longer term project and I want to try a different style of photography.

While I like B&W, I am finding that it works best for me when it is a simple scene.  The more complex the scene the better it works in color since it helps separate out the details.

The above images are straight out of the camera raw files as captured and then converted according to in-camera settings using LR.

I tried to capture the kinds of images that I remember from the older film images that were prevalent in the past.  The only difference is that I used a micro 4/3 camera with the kit 14-150mm lens to take these pictures.  To the best of my ability, I hope to minimize the need to process these kinds of images on my computer other than for cropping and resizing or making minor tweaks.

As I walkabout I will be looking for scenes to utilize this approach for some of my images published on my blog.  As I get more experienced finding such things to photograph, I hope to utilize other micro 4/3 lenses as well as my Pentax camera to make similar images.

I confess that I have been thinking about getting a full frame camera due to some occasional uncomfortable image quality issues with my micro 4/3 system.  While trying to pin down what it was that I was a little uncomfortable about, I started thinking that it might be that the images were too clinical, too digital, and that could be due to the way I have been processing them.  The above “look” is more pleasing to me as I realize I like the quiet softer look.  I don’t like the harsh colors that scream at me.