Speaking of life affirming, let's start this episode. This is, no, let me start this the proper way. It is Saturday, the 10th of August, I'm Chris, and this is the future of photography. The future of photography. I'm thinking we should probably record our pre-shows and put them online, because this stuff we discussed before the episode is sometimes really interesting. Okay, we're back. This is the future of photography at present. For our Patreon numbers, that was a joke, that was a joke, everybody. Yeah, we had that discussion. Someone asked to support us and we had that discussion and we'd love to do this, but this show would have to be much, much bigger to make this the whole bookkeeping, the whole accounting and so on, would swallow up so much that it's not worth it, to be honest. So if you want to support us, support your favorite photo club or your favorite, I don't know, photographer. Just email us money individuals. Email. That's a cash, I don't know about you guys. Any decent currency, I mean, we all live in a country with a decent currency, right? That's a Bitcoin. Yeah, no, let's not go crypto here. Can you put those in the post, Jeremiah? I thought the whole point is they didn't really exist. Welcome to the crypto episode of, no, none of that, none of that here. But mistakes, one, make mistakes and the one person who started the mistakes is Adrian. So what happened? Tell us. Can I ask you, are there mistakes? Are there ever mistakes, Adrian? Of course they are. Well, mine weren't, mine were on purpose, but, but it's, but I appreciate it. So I've just got the little segue into, into mistakes were made right today. So, so I was at this morning, walking my dog, as I often do, and I took a camera with me as I often do. And yet again, I find myself having to shoot the actual, up to two stops over exposed, you know, maxing out my exposure comp dial on the camera. And that's because it was a nice bright morning and I have a black dog, or an almost black dog. Anyway, she's got bits of other colors in her as well. But largely speaking, she is, she is non-reflective, which is not good for a photographer. Having a non-reflective subject, right? She soaks up the light. So, you know, here's, here's one, you know, Chris is showing now of, you know, relaxing on the couch, then, then there's, you know, and, you know, that's overexposed, just to make the, so you can see the features in her fur and her eyes and everything. And then the next one is her out and about this morning. And, you know, just trying to, to grab a shot of her in a forest. This is, following on the, from the infrared conversations, actually, last week, this is definitely not an infrared photo. It's a very crunchy black and white photo, but it's shot at two stops over so that I can get some detail in, in Jasmine, their dog. And that puts all the pine needles and it, that were on the floor in, in the forest. Doesn't, isn't that why I feel like it was invented? Yeah, she was quite a long way away though. And anyway, it seems a bit rude to blast a flash at a dog. Also, from looking at it, it just seems that, you know, being in focus is way overrated. Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah. So, so it was a snapshot, but then this is, this is a third shot and the last of three to get us into the proper topic. This is what happens when you say, okay, well, I'm on this setting. So what happens if I just take a shot of the trees? Because I happen to notice that if I, where I was stood, I could get a picture of some trees in a line receding into the distance. And it has a, an interesting effect where every, yeah, everything that is effectively, you know, above about a medium grey is just white. And it almost looks like it's snowing, even though I've taken this in all this. I could have bought this as a winter photo, don't we? So, you know, that then is a, do we count that as a mistake, isn't it? Or do we count it as a deliberate mistake? It was a, it was a creative test, let me say, right? Maybe not. I was like, okay, I'm going to just try and shoot like this now and see how it can come out. I like a high key picture every now and again, right? So, so, and that setting I had on my camera is one of my favourite, you know, grainy, black and white settings for graphical photography. So, you know, so it's kind of that but boosted beyond belief so that you, you lose some of the contrast and get some of the data back. So, it's sort of in a way. Can we agree that, that a mistake would be where in a photographer set out with a specific intention and settings to capture an image with intent, made a series of images that had nothing, nothing remotely to do with that intention because the settings were wrong, the mistake was made in terms of the aperture. If it was filmed, loaded the wrong film and settings instead of a ISO 25 was an ISO 3200 and what came out was something very different than the expected image and yet, they liked it. That would be a happy mistake or a happy mistake. The opposite is many of us in the past had shot a row of film and sent it to the lab and when we got back it was just black and, you know, anybody who's been in photography for a long time has experienced that kind of stomach fallen, you know, moment where those images will never come back, they didn't get recorded, there was something. Maybe the film is totally clear, maybe it never moved in the camera, there's all kinds of things or a series of double or triple exposures that created some kind of artistic genius out of the photographer who claimed that was the original. Accidental genius, yes. That's it. But if we're thinking on exposure for a second, exposure is often something that will lend itself to happy mistakes, I find that overexposure on film, color or black and white, is often a much more rewarding image, like for example, if you're shooting ectochrome and overexpose it. And so, so much of it is blown out and you get a little pastel color in the blown out highlights that they're almost like paintings, very, very, very beautiful, whereas when you shoot digital, when things are overexposed or gone, they're just gone, there's there's nothing there. There's not even film grain as texture to embrace. Yeah, exposure being one of the many, many possibilities here, right? So exposure is easy to play with and for me it has often happened in the past that these mistakes turned out to be, well, gifts in disguise, right, when you end up with just something that you totally didn't expect and that you're, that was not part of your creative toolbox, so you couldn't even go there if you wanted to because you had no idea this existed and then all of a sudden this happened and you ended up learning something from it and incorporating some of that into your, into your portfolio in the future. Do you find that, that what I was talking about in film, I'm just talking about exposure and kind of broad exposure bracketing, say three stops on each side will give you a huge palette and often that stuff, even in crushing darkness, you can dig out enough information to have something moody and, and enough contrast. Modern, modern sensors, especially the bigger ones have an amazing amount of latitude there. So I've seen pictures that were almost black or black to the eye and, and you could create from that a virtually perfect photo. So with, with the latest black, the flagship cameras, the new Canon R5, three, two and so on, they, they certainly have that latitude. But then it's not a mistake. But then it's a mistake you recovered from and. It's a deliberate mistake or mistake in that defining the perfect exposure is something you don't want. But, but going back to what you said earlier is, is a mistake, are the mistakes? Are there mistakes? I think sound like choices to me, right? Right. So you're making a creative choice at that point. I mean, I accept the thing about, you know, the, the film camera that didn't wind on properly every time. Oh, you, you're suffering. That's an accident. Right. That, that's an accident. So, you know, whereas, whereas a, a creative choice is, is something different. It's a positive thing, isn't it? Right. It, I am choosing to expose this so that it gets a moody look about it or I'm choosing, you know, to, to do something different. Right. It's, it's worth it. Right. Yeah. So let's say, let's say mistake. It's a mistake if you didn't choose to do it. If it happened. Yeah. Yeah. Similar to like, last night you shot at ISO 12, 12,000 something and you forgot to reset it in the morning and then you go out in the sunlight and you wonder why your shutter speeds are also short until you finally notice that the camera's overexposing everything. Yeah. With, with, you know, segue to focus, for example, about 10 years ago, I set out to do a folio of photographs based on how I truly see without my glasses, and finding the exact amount of defocusing or blur, how, how blind are you without glasses? Well, now I'm not blind. Yeah. You had him. You had him all because I've had my lenses changed, but at that time, quite, you know, maybe a minus six, minus seven. So that's pretty intense, quite intense. And I, I found the kind of sweet spot and I photographed all over the world from, you know, from Chile to, you know, the North Pole, just all over deliberate, defocus settings and made really, really incredible, the large prints of them. And it was, it was really, really interesting because people were seeing these pictures exactly the way I see without my corrective lenses. And there was a very, it was an invigorating and extremely satisfying project that, you know, there, I remember images of fishermen and Fiji that are, they look like impressionist paintings on the, on the ocean. Yeah. So question. Yeah. Question. Were these the only pictures you took there? Or did you also take air quotes, proper pictures? No. How's that for bold? Okay. So then, and the big, because that is, I, I do this exercise in, on workshops where I, where I tell the students now next hour, all the things that you think are sacred in photography are out the window and we are going to, to, for everyone choose their most important thing, the focus, the, the exposure and so on and, and, and make, and do it the wrong way. Of course I exaggerate a little bit depending, you know, depending on the, and people, and people, like, I see people being really, really uncomfortable, scared doing these things, scared that they are not getting a picture back. Someone, someone recently asked me, um, he's, he's going backpacking to Bangladesh. And he only has like the backpack and so very limited weight that he can take. And that results in one camera and one lens. And he ended up choosing a 35 millimeter lens on a full frame. And that's it. And I know a lot of people will say, I could never do this. I need my zoom. I need my five, five focal lengths. I need whatever, two cameras and a crop and so on. For a lot of people, that is really scary. But then in the end, when I do this exercise, um, on the other end, people come out with a big smile because that changes something. That's, that's, that's a, that's a creative limitation that, or, or, or limitation that boosts your creativity. Sure. I mean, we've, we've talked about, you know, a, a great way to learn photography is to for a year, one camera, one lens, one ISO setting, whether it's film or, or, or digital and just discipline to know every parameter of that lens combination and film combination and we'll learn so much. And if you, if you step outside of that middle range where everything is comfortable and correct, air quotes again, um, then, then you figure out where are the limits, where are the boundaries and when do I get over that boundary and what happens when I do that? Yeah. And also with everyone with multiple cameras around their neck and all kinds of lenses in their bags and they get to an environment or a moment, they have to spend time figuring oh, this would be better with a 100, maybe a 75 and all that thinking time takes away from the connection of the photographer and the moment or the environment or the moment of light. If you have one camera and you know how to use that, you will find a way to instantly create that connection with what gear you have. And the more you do it, the better it is for your development and, and after a year and a year, you know, goes by quite, quite quickly, um, then you take another lens and another ISO. One lens a year. That sounds like a, like a good goal. It is, it is a good goal. After five years, I think you'd know your equipment. Of course then there's new equipment. Yeah, but then all your equipment needs to buy new stuff. So then you have to start again, but isn't that the joy of exploration? Uh, it's, so I have, I think for me a year is, is an extended period for an exercise like that. I mean, I don't get me wrong. I can totally see the benefits in it, you know, in having an extended period. But I'm more fickle than that, you know, I love to play. So more whimsical than what I choose to shoot with. So back back to mistakes and delivered mistakes, one, one of the mistakes that was probably one of my favorite mistakes that you can do, um, is to move the camera. Yeah. The, the, the motion, motion of the camera while exposing, um, is can be driven to the extreme. I remember with being out with a group, we, we stand in on a lawn and we throw our cameras in the air. We do camera tossing, um, not, not like really high, but left hand on the, on the, on the strap and right hand on the camera, little self timer, two seconds, and then right before it goes after you tossed the camera in the air, it was, it was night. So there were street lights and things and it ended up being like totally not dangerous because you had that left hand around the strap and, um, and ended up being some of my favorite photos, very abstract, very just weird, weird, um, zero gravity kind of stuff, you know. Yeah, using, uh, you know, a 10 MD, um, bright sunlight, yeah, stop down to F 11 and shoot it one second. Yes. Just like, you know, not even trying to move it, but just, you know, regular little movements. You get very interesting, um, connections, I think, in a different way of seeing because of, you know, the way the human eyes, as we see certain wavelengths, we talked about that last week. Yeah. But there's a lot we don't see, um, animals in different ways as well. Another one that, that was easier with, with older film cameras, but, um, that's kind of, that you have to be very deliberate about these days is, is a multiple exposure, um, double triple exposures, again, one of my favorite group shots. I did on a workshop when I, when I played with a large format pinhole camera and you know how you have the film in cassettes and cassettes were not labeled, of course not. And I also did a bad job labeling the ones that were already exposed. So I ended up triple exposing the same piece of film. And it was a group shot with the front, like overlaid with the front of a Mercedes old Mercedes lorry and some plants. And it was, I'm still so fond of that. Yeah. That's a genuine accident, but a very happy one by the sound of it. I was a real, when I went, and of course I ended up developing three sheets of film. And the first two were empty and so I thought I, like, the film was broken. And then when I developed the third one is like, oh, there they went, there they are. Have you seen these photographs? There's an artist Jacob Gill, um, he's French, you know, we're, we're in, you know, you'll take a photo or a hundred photos of the same object, handheld. And then you will just layer them together. So they have not seen that now. Become impressionistic. You know, there's work of monuments like the Eiffel Tower, trees, um, just still objects that you just layer the same object onto itself, but with very, very slight movements. It becomes something other than any of the individual images. And, and again, you know, you learn, is it better to take a picture at one second, half second, quarter second? You know, all of those things at a playing with ND filters also allow some parameters of exposure in bright light that are worth exploring. So that just piling on filtration, worrying about the vignetting later is an interesting way to create deliberate mistakes of exposure and focus. Um, again, we talked about IR focusing last week that, you know, what you see is not often what you get. Um, and those kinds of, um, dogs on the move, dogs out of focus, that energy that comes out of a, a, a still photo is often so much better than a frozen image or even a filmed image of the same subject moving, because it just definitely, I mean, especially, you know, it's interesting, uh, when you're in a city where there's lots of movement as well, it's great for, and it doesn't necessarily have to be street photography per se, but you could be taking a photograph of a vehicle going by or something like that. And just playing with the shutter speed down to, I don't know, a 15th or an 8th or something like that and, and tracking to keep the subject broadly sharp as best you're able, but then letting the, the, the surroundings, you know, just go to wherever they go to, you know, with, with a lot of motion blur, that's, that's a nice one for that. I, I do like playing with something I do deliberately of, on occasion, we're conversely just setting your camera up on a tripod with a, again, an indie lens and opening up to bulb setting and just let all the traffic and people disappear and all of a sudden you're going to see your city in a whole different light. Here's another one where I, I, I, I like letting chance play out and that is, um, to not frame the shot, but to let the framing happen as in shooting from the wrist kind of things. Um, especially in street photography where you might be like a bit worried that someone will spot you, um, so shooting from the wrist will end up giving you angles and weird compositions and, and people being cut off in strange ways that you would not have done any other way. And again, after doing that for an hour somewhere, you, you end up having at least five to ten awesome keepers because they think it's what just happened. That's my, that, that's my favorite way to create a deliberate mistakes, fun, randomness and, um, exploration. I think I'd mentioned that, that, uh, I was using an insta, insta 360, uh, when I was locked down in New York City, uh, during the COVID days. And I just, I would walk around Central Park every day, um, masked and, you know, I hung the camera from my chest and you can connect it to your ear. And I would just like shoot, shoot, I was exposed with the, with a button on the, on the earphones. Yeah. Yeah. And not even a button, voice, voice activated. So I would just be walking around and telling the camera when to shoot because part of the images is lots of fun. Very inconspicuous walking around. So let me get this straight. You were walking around. Two years old, you were wandering around New York City wearing a mask saying, shoot, shoot, shoot. Around the park, uh, Central Park, it's exactly what, what was the key word? Was it click? Was it take a picture? I, I think it was shoot or something like that. That sounds very, very like, I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't do this in the, in New York City. Let's put it this way. I wouldn't do it. In the decisive moment, there is, you'll get, you'll get a very strong response in London if you do that certainly now. So what, what, what, what do we multiple exposure that we talked about in conventional angles, white balance. That's another, another thing of, of just playing with, with color, overall color. And setting your camera to the wrong white balance for the scene and not fixing it later. Because with, if you shoot raw, it's easy to fix, but you want, you want the mistake in that case. So, um, yeah, going, shouldn't that happens to faces? Why not? That happens a lot. If you shoot Fuji camera and you're into the Fuji recipes, you know, where you have, you know, cause a lot of people have put a lot of effort into designing recipes for the JPEGs that you program into the camera. And often they have a fixed white balance because they are, for example, trying to emulate a film, right? And a film is, it would be rated either, you know, tungsten for indoors, of course, or a, many of them, the majority for outdoors. So you can get quite, you can end up with a very, very warm looking JPEG if you're shooting indoors with, say, a Portra 160 recipe, which is, you know, which is trying to take a day light type approach. So yeah, and that can be interesting, actually, it can create quite a, you know, it sounds odd, but it can create quite an intimate look, you know, to be massively over warm like that. As if you're sort of being lit by a fire off, that's just that off camera or something like that. So I think it'd be quite nice sometimes. That's why I do think that a lot of these deliberate mistakes tend to work, I don't want to say better, but with a more deliberate kind of end game using film cameras, like there's, it's just because it robs the film camera robs you off options. Yeah. It takes away options that you would otherwise be thinking about and playing with and so on. So that moment, you don't have these options is going to be the moment where you start thinking about the photography. Yeah. And not the... That's one of the reasons I love the hulk is so much because there's one setting, right? Is it cloudy or sunny? And you just put it to cloudy and depends on the models, some models that switch doesn't do anything. Yeah. No, I've got modern hulkers where the switch actually changes the modern hulker. Yes. Is that like the elevator button? Or are they other New York City traffic light button? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But that literally takes away everything because you've got to know you've got to fix shutter speed at whatever it is and that it depends on the camera and how old the springs are in it. And you've got one aperture, if you just set it on the cloudy setting, then because if you overexpose your film by a stop because it's actually sunny, then as Jeremiah said, you just get a nice outcome, right? You can't write the film. Most films or at least most negative films will have plenty of latitude to be shot one step overexposed. So stick it on the cloudy setting, which is only about F8 anyway if you're lucky and go with it. And then you've got... It really is point and shoot at that point. And then of course, you can get the happy mistake of forgetting to wind on, of course, with the whole gert or winding on slightly too far or not far enough if you're not watching the window on the back of the camera where the numbers line up. But yeah, they're all good fun. And there's interesting surprises to me. My daughter just gave asked me if I wanted these cameras that she had that are no longer working. I think one is an Olympus. You know, it's a DSLR, but the shutter curtain doesn't work anymore and it's an old camera. So I said, "Yeah, yeah, give it to me." It's currently on my table with a bunch of jewelers screwdriver. I'm going to attempt to take the camera apart and put it back together again. We should make an episode on reviving old mechanical shutters because we've done that, yes. And I've had both good and bad experience with it. But even if I poke a hole... Bake it in the oven. Bake it in the oven. Something is... Seriously, 60 Celsius for an hour or two will soften the lubricants and things, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I did have one of my absolute favorite cameras of all time, which was the Hossablod, what was it called, the Model X-Pan? And I mean, just an amazing camera. I mean, just so beautiful to work and shoot and use and two lines is beautiful. And I'd gone away for a year when I came back and I took it out for a stroll. The way the camera works is it winds the film to the end. And then kind of every time you take a picture, it moves it back into the cassette. Well, all that's fine except the shutter curtain froze, wouldn't work. So, oh God, well, I just thought I'd bring it in, brought it to a big camera store here in LA. And they went, oh, this is, we've got to send this to Hossablod. And they did. And then Hossablod said, "Sorry, we can't fix it. We don't make those materials anymore." And I was like, what the... Are you serious? Yeah. And they said, no, you can't. That's not a cheap camera. No! And they basically boat anchored their own camera. I said, well, you're not even going to replace it, you're not going to stand by it. I mean, like I when it had its deteriorating chipset, I mean, they for two or three years would just replace them like that. And even afterwards, they'd charge you just basic, if you missed that window, cost to replace it. But Hossablod did not stand by their camera, and I've never forgiven them. Hossablod didn't make them, though, did they? It was made in Japan, oddly, and the... It was made by Fuji. Was it made possible? Yeah, the ex-pan was made by Fuji, so it was a Fuji film version of it, which was called the TX-1, and then the TX-2, because there was an XPAN-1 and an XPAN-2, wasn't there? Yeah. So... Yeah. But the problem is... But the problem is... They're legendarily temperamental, aren't they? The XPANs, you know, they... I mean, I'd taken it all over the world and shot really beautiful landscapes up in the Orton Patagonia at the time, and... But the problem is they said, oh, the materials they used are no longer available because they're toxic. Well, to cut it off it would not happen. Thanks for sharing. Wonderful excuse. Well... Thanks for sharing, but the fact that they wouldn't stand behind their cameras is just unforgivable. All right. Last bit of... Last mistake, and that has happened to me, I wonder if it's happened to you. You go on, let's say, an assignment or a vacation or something, and you bring the wrong focal length. Mm-hmm. Like you're an architectural photographer, and you bring the 100 millimeters, as opposed to your wide angles. So it has happened to me on a tour, photo tour, where I had a 24 millimeter, I had my zoom lens, a bit of a travel-y zoom lens, and that one broke in the luggage. It was dinged, someone threw something on it, and the lens didn't work anymore. So I was stuck with the 24 for an entire Himalayan hike. So I made the best of it, and this completely kindled my love for the 24 millimeter tilt shift lens. So that was my only lens I had, and I had to do it. That's where that comes from, is it? That's where that comes from. I was using that for... Are you in the mountains? You want a telephoto lens? You want to make things big, but I couldn't. So I had to do different compositions, I had to find different places to shoot from, and I ended up falling completely in love with that lens. Still my favorite lens. Conversely, sometimes you want to get wide, and you only have something long, and it focuses your attention on the detail. And so you define the environment or the situation by the details that you put together. Something that was very, very well done, I think I mentioned this series called Ripley, which you may or may not have seen or heard of. It's well worth it, all in black and white, beautifully done. And the sense of Italy at that time, of course they have wider shots, but the sense of detailing that frame each individual scenario is extraordinary and really gives you the feeling, which is really what we're trying to capture here, the emotional feeling of being in a place. So lenses just offer you a different perspective, but the environment really remains as kind of inspirational as ever if you know what to look for, and you don't work against your gear, but you lean forward into it, whether it's a whole guy or, you know, a very high price piece of kit, it does matter. And sometimes it really helps to be stuck with something for a while, and not being able to just switch to something else. A year. And yeah, an hour is fine, but one of my favorite exercises is the lock yourself in the bathroom and take 100 photos exercise, and of course they all have to be different. So you end up with shooting 20, and then you have everything, and then you shoot another 20 to 30, up to 50, and then it starts to become really difficult to find something new. And then you find yourself at photo 80 to close to giving up, and then somewhere in the 90s you end up lying on your back under the sink trying to find interesting shapes and things. It's really a good exercise, but it is painful to get there. It's pretty much the way I learned photography, not in a bathroom, in a very, very small one bedroom studio apartment where I was pretty much locked down for a month. And I bought it in larger, in paper, in chemicals, in books on photography, and I had a lens and a camera, and all I did all day is take pictures of my environment and develop them and print them. And that's how I learned to do that. I literally am self-taught in that way. But I do remember loading, this is a little aside, loading my first film into the, and I went into the bathroom, closed the door, and went, "Ah, this is nice and dark." It's great. I'm struggling with it. It's not starting at all. Very slowly. I can see my hands, so I can see, you know, all the light coming through the bottom of the door. And of course, the pictures resulted in a clear view. So I learned that you have to really block it out, but, you know, one less than a time. Mistakes are often the best teachers. So that's true, yes, very true. Having that said, and before we get into the picks of the week, we have a quick follow-up from the last episode. On our Discord, Andrew wrote us about our converting old DSLR to infrared. He wasn't very happy with that idea, because he says mirrorless or point-and-shoot cameras are way better for infrared photography, because you get a live view even with the filters on. Whereas an optical viewfinder on a DSLR will make focusing difficult with an IR filter. And I do agree, although I use live view on a DSLR for that, and you can make this work, but it's definitely easier. But if that old DSLR is the only thing you have lying around, then it might be worth investigating if someone can convert that and still gives you something that is more affordable. And don't you agree, it only takes one roll of film or one kind of set of 50 exposures to figure out just that play between what you think is in focus and what isn't? And this only comes into play if you're shooting wide open as well. If you close it down, you'll have enough depth of feel to accommodate that. That kind of depends on a bit on your experience in photography and so on. Another point, again, if you want to read all its points, come to our Discord. The link is in the show notes and on the screen. One interesting thing though, because we also said film SLRs are really good for that, and they are because they do not typically do not have infrared filters in them. But he wrote, "Choose your models carefully, because some later models of some cameras use an infrared light for film tracking." So to see if the film is in or where it is, which can affect infrared film, of course, if you have an infrared light source in there. And then later on, like a Canon One Series, they have seals to prevent this, but some other cameras do not. So that's something to do some research on if you want an SLR or film SLR to use for infrared photography. Just do your due diligence, go and ask the recording search engines. Alright, speaking of interesting photos. The pics, I'm just going to start with my pic, because it clearly definitely links into what we talked about. And that is the motion while taking photos, and of course, I'm going back to camera tossing, which again, can be at any height you wish or you can toss the camera, but very often it's not really super high. It's just a matter of getting the timing right, and then you end up with very cool abstract photos, especially at night with lights, with light sources. You can see they are just some of them are amazing. The thing you will also see with street lights, for example, especially with LED lights now, is that they are pulsed, so you will get little dotted lines instead of lines going through. Depending on how the camera falls or flies through the air, you get very interesting shapes. Often they are like busier shapes, that's really kind of stuff, but sometimes it also ends up being just strange, but very organic usually. Wonder what they would look like converted to 3D. That's absolutely a good idea. I've seen some of them, of course, are like self portraits, not a long exposure, but a short one. Toss the camera up, and if you're lucky, it points down when it takes the photo. So an aerial kind of photo, and then some of them, I've seen, especially the ones at night where they inverted the photo, so you end up with these shapes, but they are dark and bright, and this one here, look at that, isn't that just wild? Yeah, that's great. Anyway, that is camera tossing, and the camera toss gallery on Flickr is great stuff there. All right, Adrian, you brought us the Mangrove Photography Awards 2024. What is the mangrove? Yeah, so I just wanted to be very specific, so I actually looked at what was the definition of mangrove, just to make sure that I was representing this properly. And it literally is a type of tree or bush, well, many different species, but trees or bushes that grow in the edges between salt water and either the land or fresh water. And biologically they're slightly different because they're better able to process salt. But the importance of this is this is a photography award, which actually looks to highlight the environmental risks to mangroves, because a lot of them are very fragile environments. And so this award looks to both celebrate the mangrove and to raise awareness of the lives of people and the lives of the mangroves themselves, which are at risk. There are lots of, they start off with some quite tired photos, actually, of people whose homes or businesses are in this kind of area and are being damaged as the sea rises. There's a fantastic funny one you're showing there, which is of a mud-based ceremony where somebody has had their whole head and body encased in mud from the mangrove. To what end? To what end? I don't know exactly, quite what it's supposed to do for you, I don't know. But it goes on to, there's wildlife, this one here, of a turtle that's been rigged with a satellite tracker so that you can tell what's happening to the marine life in the mangrove areas. There are some overhead landscapes, people interacting with the environment. There's all sorts of stuff, actually, that really explores this particular type of environment and the place they play in people's lives. So yeah, I just caught my eye this week, a really long web page linked in the show notes that you could scroll down and see lots of different things, lots of things to make you think. I like it, I can stop scrolling. Exactly, no, totally, it goes on for ages, so if everybody wants to sit here and have a little bit of quiet time on the podcast, well that one was quite a good one. If you start, there's one here which is shot near where, in Florida, near where the SpaceX launch site is. But apparently, the large number of rocket launches in this particular area are actually impacting the environment of the lakes and the mangroves around where the rockets take off. It's impressive and striking photographic, it comes with a warning tail with it. Yeah, lots of stuff. Interesting. Cool, very cool. Thank you for sharing. We'll put a link in the show notes and last but not least, Jeremiah has a new gadget. I do, I do, I'm bringing gear and forgive the sounds of the police helicopter hovering over the fence. Are they coming to get you? Yeah, it's a familiar sound to those of us who live in LA, but that's the sound you hear is a... They're about to land on top of you. So that sounds like... They're coming a favor squarely, isn't it? Anyway, my pick, if I could shout above it, is the micro studio light, it's a... What's it called? A hobo light? Yep. Which I have in my hand. It is absolutely a dazzling piece of kit that I am totally in love with. You can adjust your color, your Kelvin, the kind of spread you have in terms of crystallizing the spread of light. It comes with color filters, soft domes, and it's extraordinarily well made, it looks like a little camera really. Yeah, it does. But it is just a joy, especially if you're kind of focused on, you know, macro photography or shooting in studio, but also just works really, really well in terms of... It looks very retro with a leathering on and stuff. I think all their lights, they make a whole series, are very, very well designed and beautifully, just beautifully manufactured and not hyper expensive. So we're looking at, if you're looking for just a small little light, you know, to you. Yeah, I have seen these, I saw them at the photography show earlier in the year and had a play at almost bought one, or maybe even more than one. I do remember when you're talking about this, but this is the micro version of it, so it's really shrunk. I mean, palm of your hand, they have some that, you know, that are... Hold it up again for those watching the video, just want to see it. Oh yeah, that's tiny. Oh yeah, it is very tiny, it's very small. Yeah, it is. Looks like a camera. And here's your controls and charging, and it has a removable lens. I mean, that's really... Yeah, that's great. I don't think I saw that micro on that, maybe a new one, but yeah, they're obviously well made things and they look delightful and, you know, it makes you think, because so much, I mean, if I think of the lights I've got around me and the lights I use, so, I mean, they're very, very practical, but they're not exactly good looking, most of them, you know. Yeah. Metal or black plastic or whatever. You know, it's nice, Adrian, is like getting a new camera, you go like, "I want to just play with it." When you have a new... Here, has the potential to unlock something in you. Yeah, it's like, "Oh, what can I light? What color can I use?" And now that I'm kind of breaking in a new studio, I have some room to just spread. New big studio and one micro light, and that's your challenge for one entire week, only that light. I'm very happy to undertake that challenge. That will be your challenge. All right, everyone, that was it for today. Let's finish. Let's end the show before they really come here. They land on me. Oh, well. So making mistakes, yeah. We've all made mistakes. Plenty of it. I enjoy making mistakes. For me, actually, making mistakes is by far the most important way to learn new things, by messing up, by... Without a doubt. Yes. And, yeah, I've taken away things from the mistakes I made. Anyway... Somebody's made a mistake and is running away. Someone's making a mistake listening to this episode right now. We will be back soon. This was the Future Photography Finders at thefutureofotography.com. Until next time, everyone, take care and bye-bye. You've been listening to The Future Photography. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your other podcasts. Find the show notes and more information at thefutureofotography.com. [Music]
