Once again, I look to my blog only to find out that it’s been over a year since I last posted anything here. Part of that is just the craziness that is life. Still, there are plenty of blogs out there by plenty of people as busy or busier than me. I think the real root of my issue is that I tend to think of my blog a little more highly than other outlets where I post words and/or pictures. I always aim to have the work I put in here live up to a more stringent standard. Lately, my thoughts on the matter have been shifting, though.
I’ve all but given up on social media. Nominally, I still have a Facebook account but I don’t use it. I did sign up for Twitter in the pre X days but I think I responded to one tweet and never made any of my own. I’ve never gotten into any the newer platforms like TikTok, BlueSky, Threads, etc. About the only place I still hang out is Instagram and truthfully, my weariness with that platform is growing, too. The algorithm is so stacked to prefer consistent content, especially when it’s video based. Consistency has never been my strong suit and I have enough trouble thinking about one frame at a time. Trying to create content at 24, 30, or more frames per second is just too daunting for me. Influencer is a title that I’ll never be able to apply to myself.
I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to just post more here. I usually have a few thoughts to accompany my photos. Sometimes quite a few. Even if it isn’t always the most polished or philosophically deep, it’s the kind of stuff that would lend itself well to a blog. The added bonus is that I have much more freedom to post it all on my terms, too. Instagram’s arbitrary image size and aspect ratio requirements need not apply here. I can keyword to my heart’s content (well, at least if I’m not courting the best SEO practices, which I’m really not. Keywords are usually for me first and if they benefit anyone else, that’s a bonus). I’m not feeding the social media giants’ platforms in their relentless push to track and advertise to us all more and more. All told, it feels so much nicer.
So, on that note, I present some recent work with a newish acquisition — a Nikon AF Nikkor 200mm f4D Micro. It’s something of a legend in the macro community. While I’ve never been too deeply interested in macro work and have settled for the more usual macro offerings in the 50-60mm and 90-105mm ranges, this has been kind of a fun pick-up. 200mm gives you a lot more working room and makes it far easier to photograph insects. It also makes it a lot easier to isolate a subject without having to worry about other distracting elements. I’ve been really inspired by the work of Simon Booth lately. Much of his work does feature macro sized scenes that can be found almost anywhere. That’s so appealing to me for where I’m at in life at the moment. Work and home life are busy and I just don’t have time to pursue some of my bigger projects that require a lot of travel and being out at certain times of day. So the Micro Nikkor was an effort to pursue smaller bits of beauty that I can find close to home or work whenever I find those fleeting bits of time. We’ll see where this leads but the start has been promising for me for sure!
All photos in this post were taken with my Z7 and the AF Nikkor 200mm f4D Micro on the FTZ adapter.