*travel and OM whitterings*
Interesting couple of mails about travel photography in last few digest
I got, including Kens email. I must extol the virtues of the little mju
compact cameras which I just took to china. I just spent a month in
south west of china travelling overland from hong kong to yunnan. It was
not easy travelling with lots of nasty shaky bus rides and smoky train
journeys but some beautiful places. Both my OM cameras broke on the
journey, including my loveable OM1 whose meter got jammed at the top of
the frame when I accidentally left it on. I seriously would reconsider
taking older OMs on such a trip again as they just don't cope with the
rough travelling, whereas the more rugged EOS, Nikon or perhaps OM3/4
cameras would.
One of the whole issues with travel photography is also the interaction
with the subject which, using systems like the OM is essential to good
documentary style photography, or any portrait shots. The Chinese were
extremely shy people and on the whole would never even look at the lens
when trying to take a photos, especially in the more touristy areas. I
even got attacked by an old woman in yangshou (guilin) as I tried to
take her photo which showed their intense dislike at being photographed.
In some countries like Mozambique when I have spent a few weeks before
the people are so camera innocent that natural photos are no problem and
they don't even pose a face. They probably don't realize the portrayal
power of a potential photograph. I would have done an auful lot for my
EOS system while away in china, the fast autofocus/autoexposure would
have given that BIG extra edge on any photos taken, really for portrait
type shots. In mozambique I had superb shots from an entirely manual
OM1.
So good luck Ken on your travels, I ended up spending the last week of
my trip shooting kodachrome 64 or B&W in the beautifully small, 35mm mju
camera as this was all I had left to use, but definately got the best
results of the whole trip with it. It was so fast to withdraw from my
pocket whilst flipping open the cover then just snapping the shot.
Landscape were really well exposed for slide with a large elemnt of sky
in the picture. You could also keep it open with the flash off but this
drained the battery quite badly. Another swiss guy I spent a few days
with shot 2 rolls of film in his AF minolta with just a 21mm lense held
by his thigh, I'm sure they were nice photos.
--
James (UK)
mailto:J.A.Lumley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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