A HOPE TO STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

When it comes to technology devices, GAS (Gadget Acquisition Syndrome) is inevitable. This certainty has doubled up on me when I started shooting with film cameras such that it only took me three months from using a Superheadz Ultra Wide and Slim plastic camera to a Canon AE-1 Program SLR, five months to acquire my Pentax KX (also an SLR), and only a month to bite the bullet on a Konica C35 EF.

It is almost a year since the last purchase, but this does not mean I do not bleed inside every day to the parade of cameras for sale on Lomomanila, Film Photography Swap and Soviet Camera Store in my Facebook feed. Oh what a beautiful pain it is to endure this heartache sometimes!  Geeking about them on screen is mostly enough to nurture the passion and fuel the inspiration in trekking life with this hobby.

Although caving in to another purchase is always an almost, I told myself what I had was enough since I still feel pretty much confident on using my current cameras with what I usually want to achieve in taking photos. I guess the Universe noticed this "sacrifice" of mine and (dare I say it) rightfully so, gifted me generously this Christmas hahaha.

It is quite unbelievable to see the Red Dot staring back at you :) 

I have not used it as much as I can, just a few tinkering captures here and there using the obsessive monochrome setting. I am sooo glad for this because I do not feel the slightest urge to need to edit the digital images at all. Here are some:

On a related note

Over the last few days, I am getting more interested in giving street photography a try since I can bring the camera with me all the time because of how compact it is. So far, I'm trying to read and digest Eric Kim's and Dave Powell's blogs and watch some Garry Winogrand Youtube documentaries. I love how all this new information geeks me out haha.

More so, when I stumbled upon the story of Vivian Maeir. WOW. Am I the only who knew about this now? It really does boggle my mind to know how extensive her collection of undeveloped film rolls (about 1000!) were until John Maloof's discovery. Her work in street photography is also so, so good to marvel about. They are simply exceptional. I cannot imagine the strength it took to photograph life daily and not see them for yourself.

I don't know how to feel about the business side of what has been done, though. A part of me feels thankful for the discovery, restoration, exhibition and archival, and how this can help both historians and photographers in re-living life at that time (they were dated 1950s-1990s). However, it also seem weird of me to feel a tiny bit of invading Vivian's privacy, maybe because of the fact that the world has seen her photographs first and she will not, ever. I am nowhere near knowledgeable how everything works in business, but when I think about it, it makes me cringe how someone else has profited generously from the work of a dead woman. Is intellectual property really out of the question when there's no heir?