While traveling last month I took my small camera with me but rarely wanted to use it. Keeping my compositional eye open was distracting from the exploration of a new place, of being present on the adventure. That never stopped me from opportunistically pulling out my phone to take a photo, of course, it's just that it felt limiting to always be viewing the scene through the lens in my mind the way I do when I go on a photo walk, so I put the camera away.
That didn't stop me from bringing the camera again on the latest trip I took with my wife and two of our closest friends to Martha's Vineyard, a bucket-list journey to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws. Attempting to learn from my previous experience, I waited until something worthy of a photo caught my eye and then would consider how to see it through the camera. This was an improvement and I came away with a few good shots. I felt like I could have done this more but I also didn't want to slow down our group while I fiddled with composition.
We stayed in Vineyard Haven, just around the corner from the Martha's Vineyard Museum, which is currently hosting an exhibit of Jaws props, including a replica of the head of Bruce the shark that sat across from the old Fresnel lenses from one of the island's lighthouses. Across the street from the museum was an old shack that caught my eye every time we went by, so I made a special trip on the last night to shoot it and the grasses surrounding the adjacent pond. The rowboat shot was taken with my phone after a dinner where I hadn't brought my camera, basically proving my point that I can learn to turn my compositional eye on and off, so take the camera with you, Tim.
June 21 and 22, 2025 | Fujifilm X-A7 + Vitrox 28mm f4.5 and Google Pixel 8 Pro XL (rowboat)
