I want to spend the month of February with a camera in my hands, shooting anything and everything. Big concepts are not for me, certainly not this time. I just want to experiment, create and have fun with photography again. I’ve been inspired by many things lately and I want to see what I can do with that inspiration. Most of my days are spent inside my home behind the computer but I don’t want to use it as an excuse. Either I just find something to shoot at home or force myself to go out and interact with the world again. Photography to me is much more than the resulting images. It’s a way to understand, interact and communicate.
The choice of the right gear for a project, or even a short trip to town has always been a huge, stressy decision making process that could take days of pondering. I’m well aware that that is just crazy and I was tired of myself making such a fuss about it. Therefor I decided at the end of 2021 to simplify my goto setup and stick to it.
For many years, the 50mm equivalent has been my preferred focal length. It’s simply the way that I look at the world. It’s not a spectacular lens but I feel it offers the most authentic view. I recently invested in not one but two 50mm equivalent lenses to have the absolute best tools for my use. For my portrait work, my main lens is the Mitakon 65mm F1.4 (used on the GFX50R). The new Fujinon 33mm F1.4 (on the X-Pro3 or X-T3) is my main lens for reportage and personal photography. The curve ball in my goto setup is the X100V. It’s slightly wider than my preferred focal lens but it’s close enough, small, handy and capable. That makes it the perfect camera to take with me when I’m out and about.
My simplified setup is not a dogma, it’s just my way to focus and not lose time and energy in pondering over what to shoot with. I will use other lenses when I have a good reason for it. But so far, the strategy has worked for me.
The end results are of little importance to me, it’s about the creative process itself. If I have made some nice images by the 28th of February, that’s cool. But what’s important is that I’ll have learned something. I don’t just want to get myself fired up again, I really hope this project will light a fire under this wonderful group of photographers. The KAGE Collective is too valuable to just sit idle.
That said, I’m looking forward to shoot, write, look at the work of the group and discuss it on a regular bases. I don’t know what the project will look like but I’m convinced it’s going to be an interesting vignette of the lives of this bunch.
Bert Stephani
January 27th 2022
