One of the biggest hazards a professional photographer can face is the moment photography, which started as a passion, turns into 'work'.
I found myself face to face with this last year... I was only picking my camera up if someone was paying me, I dreaded the inevitable 'Can you bring your camera?' that seemed to follow every social invite. In a nutshell, I was starting to burn out. I hated dragging those big SLR's around with me.
I knew I needed to be shooting more, both to hone my craft and to rediscover my passion but life always seems to get in the way. I'm a stay at home dad with 4 kids, I just don't have the flexibility to get in the car and go off and shoot for a day for myself or travel to some exotic locale. I needed a way to shoot more that would fit into my lifestyle.
Now, I'm the first one to say that the 'gear doesn't matter' or 'they're all just black boxes that take pictures' but I'm going to make an exception here. Over the christmas holidays I picked up a little Fujifilm X100 camera for a steal (I still feel bad about that David... I owe you a few beers!).
Now, I had played with this camera when it was released but it never really grabbed my attention but for some reason this time it has. I LOVE this little camera. Sure the autofocus kinda sucks and it's only one focal length (which is actually a good thing) but like many have said before me, this is a camera made for photographers. It just feels right.
So I've been keeping this little camera charged (okay, most of the time... the batteries suck) and a memory card in there 24/7 and just shooting with it. Mostly my kids, but some other stuff too. I've even used it at work photographing weddings and commercial shoots.
I decided to do one of those cliche 365 project just to keep myself honest and shooting. Yes, sometimes I just grabbed the one shot that day or I'd forgot and have to make up two in one day but overall it's worked really well. I've never shot this much consistently.
I've been posting the images over at my Tumblr site but I thought it might be a good idea to share a few of my favourites so far here.
