My Life in reality 4 weeks later… :: PYKtures stories

As I previously stated in my last blog entry about my life, photography will take less parts in my life, as school will occupy first priority. It’s been four weeks now and I can finally blog about it.


Life at school



Not a day has passed without me filling my brains with tons of information and homework gathered from all my courses. It a good thing that my teachers are in some ways interesting in giving such brain damaging classes. Yet the things I learn will be useful in future classes that I’ll follow. Boy, I feel like doing a 6:30 am to 10:30 pm shift at some work where you have to listen, read and write. I’m even starting to lack a lot of sleep. The weeks are very tiring and I usually end up dead when Friday night comes. Being dead usually prevents me from doing anything crazy during the weekends but to have 1 day of fun (usually filled with photography) and resting/studying for what’s left of my “free time”. Ahhh bold coffee is a student’s best friend!

Every time, I finish a class, I isolate myself in my photoclub where almost nobody besides the members comes in: a peaceful quiet place where I can sit beside a black backdrop supported by Manfrotto stands, a series of Nikon umbrellas that rest in a locker, etc. Sometimes, I even walk up the hill to join my McGill friends who I discovered through photography and keep a strong bond with them. Ah, it’s a great student life.


How’s photography?



Weekends! What else can I say? I decided to leave my gear at home when I go to school unless there is a good reason to bring it out. I still suffer from a bad case of hyper-compositionitis (that sickness that makes your eye constantly compose shots even when you don’t have a camera). I also try to shoot every weekend at least 1 day out of the two. So far, it has been working out and I’m happy for it. I’ve also gotten 2 new photography gear pieces:

• The Nikkor AF-S 35mm f/1.8 DX
• A Lowepro Inverse 100 AW bag

The Nikkor is just a crazy prime that gives me sharp results wide open at f/1.8. I think I got it because I sent my Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 to repairs for 4 weeks and got stuck into this Leica M-like way to shoot primes. After seeing the results of the Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 shot on a new Leica M9, I couldn’t help but think of shooting with the same field of view. So I started to read on the 35mm and ended up buying it. I love it! Mounted on my D90, I can practically use one hand to shoot.

Thus I got into shooting with primes, using mainly my Nikkor AF-S 105mm f/2.8 VR N and the 35 as my two primary lenses, without using flash. Having those two items in my once small Slingshot 100 AW made the bag feel big. I would normally use my beloved Top Load Zoom1 (that I greatly used during my travels to Cancun and Toronto), but this bag now houses my sister’s D80. Thus I went on a quest for another bag. After going through my usual research (Google, friends, etc…), I decided to bring my gear to a camera store and came back with the Lowepro Inverse. When I look at it, it feels like a smaller Slingshot fused with a Fanny belt pack. While I think I would look ridiculous using the very comfortable belt, it felt natural to clip it when I augmented the load of the bag with other lifestyle accessories. Bottom line, I like it.




Last Saturday, I went on a photo outing with members of ReflETS called PORTRAIT (something that has to do with portraits) and had a blast. After that, I was sooo tired that I ended sleeping through 14 hours to recover for Sunday and Monday.

I'm not that I’m the same crazy passionate photographer as I was a year ago, but I've learned a few thing while dwelving into that madness.


To sum it up

School is tough, but I love it. It brings me less time to… have fun (aka take pictures), but I’ve adapted and even lightened the load of the gear I carry to bring my photography to an even more casual level. I’m clearly leaving the high-end creative flash photography territory for good and going back to the style I used to shoot: street (lol I only recently discovered what it really meant and it makes sense with what I like to shoot) with occasionally a portrait or two along the way.