Winter Light on the Chesapeake slideshows & Olympus OM-D Preview

            I’ve been an Olympus Visionary since 2003, and a large part of my decision to go with them was their design philosophy.  This is built around the idea that smaller is the design of the future.  Olympus introduced the Pen series a few years ago, also based on a retro design of the Olympus Pen half-frame cameras.  These have been a big success for Olympus and have driven the market to respond to their industry-leading design philosophy.  I’ve been preaching the advantage of this system, especially for the travel photographer, as everyone is tired of carrying huge cameras and lenses.  Not only the exhaustion factor, but also a smaller camera allows the photographer to be less intrusive.  This accomplishes a couple of things:  smaller means lighter which makes it much more conducive to carrying the equipment. so you have that high-quality equipment when the moment avails itself to you.  And the reality of today’s world, it’s safer not lugging around a big camera..which in many countries equates the photographer to wealth.

            Camera companies find one of their largest competitors, especially in the consumer camera market to be smart phones. These ubiquitous devices are always close to or “onboard” the carrier (aka “human”.)   I think there is a style of photography that is driven by these cameras, one that may result in simpler and less engaging images.  When the image-maker has to hold the capture device at arms length it minimizes that ability to carefully construct and compose the image.  When we hold a camera to our eye, that viewfinder becomes our world.  That photographer is able to move left or right, up or down accordingly.  These often-subtle changes in perspective & composition are accomplished because we can see every visual nuance in the frame.  When that cell phone camera is at arms-length, it’s more difficult to carefully observe that visual “dance” that’s occurring in the viewfinder.  The result is a LOT of snapshots being made available via Facebook and other image sharing sites.

            Millions of images are uploaded to Facebook and other sites daily.  The result is even less time spent on a single image as studies have shown that we give less than a half-second of attention to an image, whether on a website or in a magazine.  The job of the photographer is to capture/create a compelling moment that engages, informs and stops the viewer, pulling them into that world of the photo.

             This provides the platform for the perfect question: don’t we want our viewers to spend time on our photos, our moments?  By producing a smaller and easily cartable camera such as the Pen series, that technology is provided that has a much great potential for creating a real photograph, versus a snapshot.  Snapshots speak to only those in the frame; a photograph speaks to a far greater audience.

            With the releases of Olympus’ OM-D Micro Four Thirds camera, the bar has been set even higher as equipment for the high-end photographer.  That weather-resistant, 16MP camera along with a series of real-world lenses, ranging from an 18-36mm (35mm equivalent) all the way out to a 600mm provides the working photographer an arsenal of equipment to get the job done.  I’ve been using the 12mm f2, which is a tremendous lens.   Fast, small and with a mechanical focus barrel override, this has become my newest go-to lens.