70 rolls of film – World travel with Canon EOS 300

Flickr Album here.

It was the old days in 2002. Everyone still use the film cameras. And my camera is the simple and good Canon EOS 300, with 24-85mm zoom.

I was a photography beginner and this camera is my first camera, but since I was a flight attendant for a year, I wouldn’t want to waste my chance to take beautiful photographs. I have traveled 53 cities in 1 year. nearly 70 rolls of film.  It was a great year.

When i look back on my photos, despite my photography eyes are still in infancy, the fact that these 53 cities had offered so many photographic locations still result in lots of good shots.

At the first half of my journeys, I take a lot of photos with the beautiful scenery: mainly architectures and nature. Mostly day due to the lower low-light performance of film and my zoom lens won’t be that fast. I usually shoot at ISO 200 or 400. My 24mm wide lens fits me just well that my mentally of taking photos are mostly “I feel and see good about a place, and I capture it through camera”. But as my other post is discussing, this mentality only get you so much due to the fact that, a place feel and look good, isn’t necessarily a photographically good spot. Examples are like sea-front, or beautiful interiors.

Then I was more conscious about composition,

after a while I get bored because i felt i was producing too many “postcard” photos: beautiful but boring to me.

Then I had more eyes on the colors, but it wasn’t enough yet.

Then i had more eyes on the light, well it’s nearly there…

At the second half of my journeys. I tried to put a subject on every photo i take: a pedestrian, tourists, local people, children, etc. So that i have a subject and a background.

This wasn’t as easy as I thought, and as you see the photos aren’t superb yet, but this is the start of my portrait photography 🙂 and I really like it more and more.

The love and challenge for portrait photography is that, it won’t wait for you, you lost the moment, you lost it. On the contrary, this challenge make it more addictive. And I’m no longer bored again 🙂 Got to appreciate the beauty and complexity of people. Their action, expressions contains stories, emotions, drama, as well as it inter-relates with the background environment.

Of course, When I said I’m bored with my “postcards”, I don’t claim I’m a great landscape or architectural photographer either. The above is just how my photography journey is :).

After this one year, my main career kicks in, and sadly, I put down my photography for nearly 10 years until a Tibet trip. This post is when I re-ignited my passion of photography.