A View of a Bed I Don't Sleep On

Just recently we had changed this room to a retro gaming room where my wife and I would just play old video games. At this time of the day the light was incredible and I need to capture what I could before it decided to sleep for the day. I used the Retro filter on my X Half and it gave it this cool color that I enjoyed.

So far the pace I'm putting this camera through has me realize a couple of things:

1. ISO should be at 200 on a sunny day if you're on film simulation mode and using Aperture Priority.
2. Keep the Aperture at 5.6 as best you can. It's the sharpest point of the lens.
3. Fuji Chrome, Classic Neg & Retro filters are my go-to's for the sylistic approach to the images.
4. Make sure to give it a bit of "Weak Grain" because the images do tend to look like phone filters without some noise.
5. Don't let the YouTube influencers tell you this camera sucks. Most of the time their pictures suck and they can't make a good photograph if their life depended on it.

I can almost say that this camera has a lot of interesting limitations that make the challenge of photographing good for me. Considering that I'm a film shooter with cameras that have loads of limitations (you really have to know where you're at with the exposure because most of my cameras do not) this camera sits within that frame of limitations that allows me to figure out how to make a photograph a certain way. It's making me think about how I frame pictures again and that's what I've been missing lately. This and make music has been def exciting for sure.

I have a good amount of images in the tank to sort through and post in the coming weeks. I'll def be shooting more so stay tuned

- Artly

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Morning Commute

In the past week we've been getting these sporadic moments of rain and humid sun in the mornings and afternoons (vice versa on other days) and it's been interesting for photos for sure. And speaking of photos I've been liking the idea of just shooting since I've acquired this X Half. Sort of takes me back to becoming a beginner again and making things feel like I'm discovering new ways of going about old habits. I'm finding that taking pictures with these limitations are what make the process a bit more interesting and help make photography become a bit more of a challenge than having accessability to everything that other units have these days. Now I do carry a X100T and that camera is honestly one of the best cameras I have, but I've come to realize that is not one of my favorites. I struggled using that camera a bit, but over time I think I understood what it was good for the moment I started putting it through it's paces.

On the X100T I realize that I wanted to get the RAW form of the sensor and not put any filters on top of the images. I wanted to learn the camera and deal with the colors it offered with no simulations. I kinda realized that method was good enough up until I started getting tired of the colors that it was offering. Plus my workflow was straight up ass. I just couldn't do it anymore. It lead me to shooting film more and more and just shelving whatever I shot for a good amount of years. Now, I will say that the ergonomics and the size are what keeps me from selling this camera. It's a camera that's familiar and is limiting since it's a fixed lens unit. I only use one lens, but that's something that I'm able to take on and use around the subjects that I'm photographing. I hate thinking about specific focal lengths and let the limitations help me become more creative.

Back to the X Half I'm having a lot of enjoyment using the filter simulations and allowing simulated grain to make the images have this specified look I wish I could implement on my X100T. Honestly it's probably one of the best cameras I have and it's truly gotten me excited to go to places and just shoot stuff. This coming week I'll be heading to New York with my wife to celebrate our anniversary through a K-Pop show and hangs around the city. This will give me a chance to just shoot shoot shoot as much as I can and I hope I can come home with something. Hell, maybe I'll be able to collect a good amount of work and print them out and actually make a project again. Who knows! All in all I'm having fun and that's all it matters.


- Art Photo

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Rainy Season

I'm not gonna lie to you. This camera is really doing it for me. I'm hecka excited for this thing.

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Fuji X Half

Just recently my wife and I bought each other the Fuji X Half (wife got the chrome version) and have been learning how to use it over the course of the days. Much like my X100T the X-Half has quirkiness forcing me to figure out how to navigate the camera and the subjects differently than your standard cameras out in the market. This one is slowly bringin me back to taking photos more often than usual (I usually bring my camera out anyway, but seems like there's more incentive).





Perfect pairing for a shooter like me it's small and easy to just pick up and head out the door much like my other cameras that I currently have. The Leica (needs repair unfortunately), the Konica Hexar, the Olympus Pen F and even the QL17 all have that ability to not make any excuses and just grab and go considering how small and mobile they are. I continue to have this mindset because lugging a huge monolith isn't fun and almost looks kinda dumb.





Purely this is an Instagram Camera lol, but then again it's also a camera where you can just have fun with it without having to think about HUGE production. And I think that most photographers in this era think about that too much. They don't really know how to have fun with this thing and are pixel peeping and poo pooing the aspects of it not having RAW and wanting it to be like the camera they already have and not try to experience something new and actually run the paces of the camera for a long while and all this other shit that doesn't really matter. For the most part these images are only going to be digital copies and they'll never in their life ever try to print these images. I can almost guarantee that's going to be the case.

As for me I think I want to try my hand on printing these images in some way or another. There's an Instax printer ability for this camera (with much of their other cameras also able to provide the same concept), but also I think it's good enough to print a 5 x 7 or even an 8 x 10. This might be one of those cameras I use to make a small project on just to get on the feeling of shooting like that again. I'm not sure how I want to go about it, but it might be something good for like portraits and stuff??? I don't know. I don't know anymore lol, but I'm excited about it.


Until then I'm going to be putting it through its paces. We'll see what I can gather up


- ArToGraphEr

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