Lighting up Lightroom

Happy new year everyone! One more year has passed and here we are in 2016! Times seriously flashing by. As this is a reality that we all need to accept in today’s age, hope and sincerely wish this year brings you all a lot of happiness and success in life.

Trust everyone has written down their resolutions for the year. I had never done this in the past, and for the first time I decided to make a small list of items that I desire to accomplish in 2016. During recent times a stark reality, that I’m completely off track from where I want to go in life, has dawned on me, warranting the need to jot down actions that will hopefully, guide me back on track. I’m obviously not going to list them down here, as I’d rather not be mocked in the event that I don’t stick with them 🙂 Nevertheless, I am happy to report that its been going quite well so far. I have made tangible progress with a couple of my resolutions – the list contains 7 action points. One of them is photography! Cliche?

I bought a Fuji XE 1 camera almost 2 years back, with which I planned to toy around and take the baby steps to photography. The background to my intent was the apparent fact that I had an eye for uncommon angles and an interest in natural landscapes. I have a point-and-shoot Canon SX 150s, with which I have taken some remarkable pictures, which I am personally proud of, and this provided me adequate motivation to venture into semi-professional photography. Clearly, I don’t aspire to get into photography big time, but would like to produce some types of pictures that appeal to me. My aim is to create beautiful pictures – the kind I have seen in minimallyminimal.com and adrielhenderson.com – my foremost sources of inspiration. They are purely casual, while simultaneously depicting a richness that makes me stare at them in awe.

Last year, I got around with a couple of experienced friends who taught me the initial stuff on the exposure triangle. We went around to various places and took snaps which to my pleasant surprise, turned out reasonably good. I had then begun to get a grip on adjusting the ISO, shutter speed and aperture, but then as always – I’m sure most of you have gone through this – the practice waned and I got distracted by other interests. While I had thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the learning, somehow I couldn’t keep up with it. So I decided, this time, I’ve got to see it through. As for now, I’m leaving the manual adjustments aside, set the camera to Auto, and click, click and click.

Here I will not deal with photography jargon like depth of focus, dynamic range and the like, but will give you a brief on the Fuji XE 1 package I purchased. The XE 1 is a mirrorless digital camera which has a vintage classical look. It was purely love at first sight. The package came with 2 interchangeable lenses: The Fujinon XF 18 – 55 mm, and XC 50-230mm. Satisfactorily, this covers the entire range, but I would definitely have appreciated a wide angle lens too. Some of the best pictures I have seen from Andrew (minimallyminimal.com) are wide, both vertical and horizontal. A lightweight pouch completes the sweet package, making it comfortable to carry around almost everywhere every time. I never liked the inherent bulkiness of the DSLRs. Anyways, why spend all that money and go in for a DSLR, when the kind of pics I imagine can be obtained from a mirrorless micro four thirds camera like the Fuji, and any post processing software like the Adobe Lightroom I installed yesterday. I will take a while to get around and become comfortable with Lightroom, but I hope to eventually get there.

So, yesterday morning I drove down to the newly inaugurated User Car Market in Sharjah, lying on Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed road, just behind Tasjeel Village. I carried the XE 1 with me, hoping to capture some reasonably good pics. I ended up shooting only about 8 to 10 pics, one of them being a handsome yellow 1973 MG MGB roadster! These roadsters were developed and manufactured by the British Motor Corporation between the 1960s and 1980, featuring a classic 2-seater design.

I chose to play around with this photo in Lightroom, and I must say it turned out quite well in line to what I like. I’m sure there are more features that one can use to enliven the snap further, but I am satisfied with the effort for a start. So here is the picture – the only one in this post.

Fujifilm XE-1, XF 35.8 mm, ISO 200, f/22, 1/105