The last few weeks I’ve had the overwhelming desire to do a shoot, but I could not for the life of me decide what the shoot was going to be.

Even when I went out on my drive last week on my so-called ‘scouting trip’ to see how some gorgeous valleys and hillsides caught the late afternoon sun, it still felt like something was missing.
I was trying really hard to ‘find’ images, trying to cobble together compositions, that the whole thing was becoming slightly disheartening. The car not starting for the best part of twenty minutes served as a great distraction from the growing disappointment in my head.

I got home and for the next few days, I simply focused on the business side of my photography; all the joyful stuff like the backend of the website, updating the print shop.

And then Mum pruned the Smoke Bush.

 

I left them overnight and a little more of the life had left their drying limbs and crinkling leaves. To be honest I felt a bit of trepidation about how I was going to photograph them. I think not being able to put together any compositions acceptable to my perfectionist mind the week before was playing with my intentions for the smoke bush shoot then.

In the end, a basic white chair, a simple plain glass vase against my studio wall was all it took to get my compositional juices flowing. Stepped back a couple of metres from my north-facing studio window (bathed in the filtered clouded skylight), the contracting foliage of the smoke bush was gently steeped in the softest light.

I still wasn’t feeling it though, I felt the images still looked flat. I was using my favourite lens, (XF35mm F2), but I felt I just couldn’t get that essence of what was happening to the bush, I just wasn’t getting that sense of decay as the limbs were drying out.

I left it overnight, I wasn’t going to sit there and ponder as I did in the car last week. “I’ll come back to it tomorrow,” I thought.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I woke the next day with a one thought bounding around inside my head, “Back to basics.”

I got my camera out, took off my favourite beloved lens and mounted this beauty.

 

My Pentax Asahi SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4. I hadn’t used it in ages, I don’t know why it’s a simple joy to use.
Now,m0unted on my X-T3, I got the tripod out, and the remote cable release.

The light was far better than the day before and I felt butterflies of excitement. I just let myself play for the first time in ages, my mind removed from creating a print; the desired outcome.
I became lost in the process, the composing, the checking of camera levels, the focus peaking, the aperture, the iso.

 

 

 

I loved the focusing on this beloved vintage lens and it was really brought to life the textural details of the leaves as the entered their decay.

 

 

 

Smoke Bush I Botanical Photographic Print A2 (420 x 594mm)

 

Smoke Bush II Botanical Photographic Print A2 (420 x 594mm)

Sometimes when you get lost, you see things you hadn’t thought of before, you forget the subject and you just see shape, texture, colour and form.
Using the Pentax vintage lens took me back to my days when I was starting out in photography when I was a devout manual settings shooter. I really enjoyed the deep focus that it requires, and it reminded me of why being behind the camera captured my heart in the first place.
I just wanted to keep playing so I attached my macro extension ring to the back of the lens adapter and I was blown away with the intricate details I was able to focus in on.

The shallow depth of field of the f/1.4 was so glorious to work with again, I completely forgot about how much I drool over Fujifilm’s XF56mm f/1.2

By getting totally lost in the process of capturing forms, breaking down the subject (in this case the smoke bush cuttings), the ‘desired outcome’ took care of itself.