space needle – Bryan Takes Pictures

As Photokina approaches and we all start drooling over new cameras, don’t forget that you can enjoy your hobby just as much with the gear you already own. If not, then why is this still your hobby? I have two cameras that can consistently remind me of this: the Minolta Talkman and the Lomo Fisheye.

The Talkman is a 35mm point-n-shoot with a fixed 35mm f/2.8 lens and “autofocus”. Even though I’m a big fan of Minolta, I feel like they’re lying when they put a big “AF” on the front of the Talkman. I’m 99% sure it’s fixed focus. Not having the ability to manual focus is not the same as autofocus. There is, however, a voice that tells you to “check distance” sometimes, but it seems pretty random and the only out of focus shots I’ve ever gotten are with subjects too close to the camera. But none of this matters because the camera TALKS! It says useful things like “too dark, use flash”, or “load film”. Ok, the talking is a gimmick and a product of misguided marketing, but it’s why the camera is fun. A sample:

I’ve already written about the Lomo Fisheye camera before, so I’ll just share a recent shot I took of the monorail in Seattle. The fisheye is fun to use and the fact that you have to wait for the film to be developed to see the results only makes it more fun. Every time I take a picture with it, I get the feeling the shot won’t turn out, so every successful image is a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, the fisheye doesn’t talk.

Get out there and take some pictures with the camera you already have! That doesn’t mean you have to stop drooling, though…

I work a couple blocks from the Space Needle and everyone who visits Seattle (including myself, before I moved here) wants to see it so as you can imagine I have a lot of photos of the Space Needle. In fact, everyone has a lot of photos of the Space Needle. The challenge is taking a photo that hasn’t been done before. The Space Needle is actually a good subject for exercising creativity because it’s visible from just about everywhere. You can even see the it from the pointy building on the far right side of the picture above (Smith Tower). This means that there are an infinite combination of foregrounds, backgrounds, and angles to include in your Space Needle picture. If you search Flickr for pictures of the Space Needle, you can identify a few clichés fairly quickly. However, the vast majority of the pictures are just a straightforward “point the camera at the Space Needle and shoot” kind of picture. I created a Flickr gallery here that includes 18 pictures of the Space Needle that are unique in some way. I had to go through over 25 pages of search results to find them. I was looking for pictures that were creative, but also well executed technically. I hope you enjoy looking through them. I would also like to share some of my own pictures of the Space Needle that I feel meet those requirements.