Taking pics in the dead of the winter
This blog feels like it's focusing more on the seasons. I only seem to pop in when the weather is severe somehow. It's not on purpose but I guess it prompts me to write a bit.
I spent most of today with a friend visiting from the next state over. She came to hang out with me and my partner in the city as well as pop into a few shops that aren't available back home. We had quite a nice time mostly just window-shopping. I ended up getting a new pillow and some things from Muji. Most of the day it was snowing pretty hard which was pretty but unfortunately tempered my ability to bring out my camera and shoot. I'm still too nervous about water causing problems with my gear even though the one body is weather resistant. It's been like that a lot lately where I'll be out and about but not shoot anything because of the weather. But I guess that's better than not going out at all.
Getting out and shooting more has probably been the hardest part of winter so far this time around. Going to California for a little bit produced some nice pics but mainly because the weather was tolerable. Everything since coming back from that has been of friends either at dinners or parties indoors. It's good practice for focusing and improving my skills in an accepting environment but it is feeling a little repetitive. The sun going down at 5pm is not helping either. I feel unmotivated to shoot because I can't try new settings beyond shooting wide open and at slower exposure times to get decent results. And then my shaky hands get in the way of a perfect shot (though maybe I'm pixel-peeping there).
Anyway, I'm still at it with the photography thing and still enjoying it when I can do it. It feels natural now. I just bring my camera with me whenever I leave the house (except for work). There's still a slight issue with speed if I'm not immediately holding the camera but that's easy to work on. Really I just need to start going out with the intent to shoot and not to go to dinner or shop. The issue with those latter two things being that I end up having to carry leftovers or bags... Doesn't exactly make it easy to take pictures in a quick, non-obvious way when you're saddled with extra luggage in your hands or at your elbow.