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I bought a camera
Most people who know me going way back online know me because I used to take photographs. In particular I used to take kitesurfing photographs on the beaches in Ireland, and occasionally elsewhere.
Five or six years ago, I completely lost my mojo, actually, it might have been longer. There were various reasons for this, although I think the main one was that I tended to have a lot of back ache which I put down to carrying the camera bag. Since December 2016, every single photograph I have taken has been with a Samsung phone, or once or twice, an iPad. I started drawing and painting. I didn’t miss carrying 25 kg of camera gear around with me. Even when I toned it down, the extra camera bag was always heavy, or awkward, and I had other stuff to carry. In truth, I’d done everything I could do with the kites and while I was planning to look at macro photography, I also packed up my life and moved to Luxembourg. For the first time in nearly 15 years, an SLR did not come with me. I did not seem to miss it.
I certainly did not miss the back pain, that was for sure. And I took some really sweet photographs with the camera on my phone, particularly of fireworks on National Day in Luxembourg. Then in December, I took photographs at a work do and discovered two things a) I still really liked taking photographs of people, and b) I still really liked processing photographs, in particular, choosing what to do with photographs. And that was when I discovered that the phone’s camera wasn’t enough. It struggled with white balance when lights were tinted. One of the things I had to clean up in a lot of photographs was a tango coloured cast. Because the phone image format was jpg, there was not a lot I could do. I wanted a RAW file.
I was not going to get that from my phone, and while I know there are a ew phones around which do have some sort of digital negative formats, I wasn’t sure I wanted to buy a phone just for its photo file format.
About 5 years ago, I had to put a photo book together for a family event and in the course of producing this, I located a lot of photographs of my dad and the rest of his clan when he was young. That was when he told me his mother had brought a Kodak Brownie from America when she came home to marry my grandfather and that she always had film in it.
This tied in to one of the reasons I liked having a camera in the phone. You always had something, at least, to catch a moment.
I like that idea but I wanted more than the phone could do for me. I know that mid level cameras are dying off because the phones are getting so good for a given value of people’s needs. I also knew I did not want to start another DSLR habit. I bought my 40D (my second one, actually) in 2009. Normally I had looked at updating it but I had the sense to realise I was using it so rarely it probably wasn’t worth my while to replace it. Photographers suffer from gear acquisition syndrome. I owned a lot of lenses; I needed to decide whether to stay EOS or whether to switch to Sony, or to look at the impact of going mirrorless. And all of that was still pointing at a steadily growing gizmo collection. I wanted something different. I wanted a compact camera that did raw that could live in my handbag. Always there, like my grandmother always had her Kodak Brownie.
So I bought a Canon Powershot G7X a couple of weeks ago. Events eventuated and I really only got a chance to play with it today.
A couple of things happened. It seems, for some reason, to be easier to pick the camera and go out, than it does for any other reason. It is a strange sort of company. Unlike drawing, I don’t need to find somewhere to work for an hour. I pull it out of my handbag, struggle with the controls but it’s there, and it is obvious to me that the way I look at the world is very different to the way I look at the world when I have a camera in my hand. The basics don’t change, and I can do Av, Tv, Manual, depending on what takes my fancy. I find that high ISO has improved beyond all recognition but then, let’s face it, ten years have passed. It would want to have.
I don’t remember missing the camera for the last 2 and a half years. I only know that when I had it with me today and I was out taking photographs, the world felt different to how it feels when I go out for any other reason. It’s easier to get lost in the moment.
A lot of the photographs I took in the past depended on serious zoom capabilities. I don’t have that any more. I want to live in a world where I use that camera, and work within its limitations. I have no doubt that at some point, I will get frustrated by the lack of 500mm.
But it has been fantastic to be back dealing with Adobe RAW and digital negatives. It is like a friend has come back.
Ale Marinated Steak Recipe
By covering the beef in an ale marinade you make your steak incredibly tender with a wonderful sweet malt flavour.
Ale Marinated Steak Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 bottle Irish Pale Ale
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon dried garlic
- 1 teaspoon runny honey
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 pack striploin steak
Method
Pour the ale into a large bowl and stir together with the dried spices, honey, and soy sauce. Remove the steak from the packaging and submerge in the bowl of marinade. Cover the bowl and put the bowl into the fridge for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, cook the steak on a griddle pan/grill/barbecue. This marinade makes the beef very tender and it will cook extremely rapidly so if you like your meat rare, simply sear for 1 minute on either side!
Once cooked, pair your steak with the ale you used for the marinade and serve with homemade chips or a baked potato and fresh salad.
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Mango Salsa Recipe
I really love the fresh flavours in this salsa and I think that salsa is a great budget dish to offer guests to your home for celebrations. It promises fresh Summery flavours and I know (at the moment) the weather isn’t all that Summery at the moment. We can hope right?
Mango Salsa
Ingredients
- 1 red onion
- 1 punnet cherry tomatoes
- 1 yellow pepper
- 1 ripe mango
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 lime
- Handful of fresh coriander
Method
Peel and chop the red onion into fine dice. Chop the cherry tomatoes into quarters.
Cut the mango by slicing to the left and right of the stone which goes down the very middle of the fruit. Don’t cut down the centre. Separate the skin from the flesh by making a small notch at the edge of the piece you’ve cut. Take a glass and using the notch push the flesh into the glass, with the skin on the outside. Chop into small pieces.
Cut the avocado at the last minute. Stir together all the chopped ingredients and squeeze over the juice of the lime. Tear the fresh coriander and place this on top so that coriander haters can avoid it in their salsa.
Great salsa depends on your ingredients being fresh and ripe at the same time. If you find that your avocados aren’t just ripe put them in the fruit bowl beside a banana a day before you plan to eat them, this will accelerate that ripening time.
The post Mango Salsa Recipe appeared first on Caitriona Redmond - Wholesome Ireland.
My March Highlights: Kate’s Wedding & EYF19
This was a busy month and I’ve been under the weather so it feels like it has dragged and also flown by. To kick off the month, I saw one of my best friends wed the love of her life....
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