magic

I understand why so many people treat B&H as the shrine of photography, and I very much regret not spending more time in their store the last time I was in NYC. Next year I will surely geek out *u*

I really appreciate how they record and upload the guest speaker events at their store, this particular class on printing was mind blowing. Before I was vaguely aware of the complications in designing for print and how badly colors can turn out, but was not ready for the depth of the subject. This video also made me aware that I know nothing about post-processing in Photoshop and even less about having an actual workflow. Lots to learn.

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I'm also seeing a lot of similarities in pursuing photography and tea as a hobby.

Beginners in photog focus on the camera, beginners in tea focus on the tea leaves. But both camera bodies and tea leaves are so volatile, with new versions of bodies being constantly released and tea leaves being an agricultural product will never be consistent. So after some time the obsession usually moves to lenses for camera, and pots for tea. Both areas are an incredibly deep rabbit hole to dive into (somehow I made it back out the pot rabbit hole...for now).

However, the actual most important factor are none of the aforementioned, but is light for photog, and water for tea. Naturally good light and water are both hard to consistently obtain, so vast amount of effort and money gets thrown into artificially recreating these. While I'm not familiar with lighting as I've yet to read through The Strobist, but any serious tea shop should have a water filtration system. I read a lot about people buying tea in China after thinking it taste great in the shop, but finding the taste dull or otherwise worse in their own homes, and if they were not the victim of a bait-and-switch tactic, its definitely because the tea shop has superior water. Thankfully my palette isn't at a point where I can distinguish the nuances caused by difference in water, because I would not want to be buying vast quantities of bottled mineral water.

Another analogy, which I've just come up with and so may be inaccurate, is that printing is akin to pouring. They're both the method in which the audience interacts with the medium. Though pouring is a lot more forgiving than printing. This analogy is stretching it haha.

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 Last note, I am sad that the XF 35mm f2 is not part of Fuji's 2016 rebate program :( Am thinking of picking it up before going to Charleston.