Category: Well-being

Culling photos and RAW vs JPEG

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"Olympus XA" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/25 sec, ISO6400
 “Olympus XA” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！How’s it going? Over here, it’s raining… make sure to keep dry and stay healthy!

Today’s photo is of one of my favorite cameras, the mighty Olympus XA. It is such a great design, and takes wonderful photos because of the lovely Zuiko lens. I love it, although I don’t shoot with it too often.

Tonight I replied to a post on Flickr that was concerning running out of hard drive space because of shooting many RAW files. In writing my response, I thought about how my philosophy on making photos has changed over the years to where I am now, which is a happy place. Not surprisingly, it has to do with decluttering. Below is the response I posted:

———

Just my personal experience…

Short answer: It helps if you cull your photos early on, and be “ruthless” about it. 🙂

Long-winded answer:

I think many of us have gone through or are going through a similar situation, myself included. There was a time when I was shooting so much, in RAW, kept everything, was running out of space, and “got behind” in processing those files. Photography started being less fun for me.

Then, I started shooting some corporate events and my view on culling the photos started to take shape. Each time I clicked the shutter, I would think “This photo is going to take me X amount of minutes to process.” This left a feeling of dread – I didn’t want to stay up all night processing so many! So I decided I needed to cull more aggressively. Now, if I shoot one event presenter, I might take 40 shots, but immediately (in camera) cull that down to 15, deleting obvious ones like closed eyes, weird mid-talk expressions, etc. Then later in Lightroom, I’d spend one minute to cut that to 3 maximum (more for a keynote), and post-process those.

I then started applying that to my personal work. I found that choosing the best ones in-camera soon after I took them made photography a lot more enjoyable. The sooner I deleted the rejected photos, the less I would think about them and consequently eliminate any regret I might have had in not keeping them. (I didn’t have time to get attached to those photos) And my memory card felt nice and tidy, free of clutter.

Another change that really helped me enjoy photography more is that I now shoot exclusively (for my personal photos) in JPEG. I have found that committing to the image immediately gives me a sense of closure and peace-of-mind. This may sound weird, but to me, a RAW file is the middle step in the photographic process, with the end of the process being a print or JPEG. It’s like the RAW file represents an unfinished project (with endless possibilities) and when I had 1,000 RAW files sitting on my hard drive, it was like having 1,000 unfinished projects just gnawing away at me. (I guess I have some issues!)

So now I cull like crazy, and I’m happy with (or at least committed to) the images I keep, and forget about all the others… it’s a lot less clutter on the hard drive and less clutter in my mind.

Sorry for the long-winded (and somewhat off-topic) message, and thanks for reading.

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I hope you have a nice rest of the evening, and let’s do our best tomorrow!

おやすみなさい！

-B Barron Fujimoto

Quote

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USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/125 sec, ISO2000
 USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

こんばんは！Hello everyone, how’s it going? Hump day is over!

Today was a super-busy day again at work, but thankfully I enjoy my work quite a bit. As I go about my day, I try to make a mental note of the new things I am learning. It’s surprising the things I pick up, or how the way I work evolves. For instance, my organizational skills have improved quite a bit (out of sheer necessity). I have so many task and projects to do, so I spend the first part of the day planning out what tasks I will focus on and the priorities of those tasks. Then at the end of the day, I set aside time to regroup on what I accomplished and think about what I will do the next day. Basically, I review things so that when I leave the office, I don’t mentally take work projects home. I can rest assured that I’ve taken care of what I need to take care of and can hit the morning fresh. That work/home separation is important and makes my time at home focused on family. (and I sleep with a more relaxed mind 😴)

Okay, that was quite a bit of rambling about work… and I rarely blog about work! But there’s a first for everything, isn’t there? 😆

Today’s Daily Prompt was another fun one. They are on a roll! Here goes:

Quote Me – Do you have a favorite quote that you return to again and again? What is it, and why does it move you?

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

I don’t return to quotes again and again (like how do you do that?) but I do remember several quotes, and this one by Dr. Seuss is one of my favorites. At the end of vacations I used to always be sad that they were over. I would wish that I could turn back the clock to the beginning of the vacation. But I learned to instead be thankful that we were able to take vacation and make some good memories. It helps to drive the blues away and actually gets me looking forward to the next opportunity to enjoy good times, whether that be an upcoming vacation, or simply the next weekend. It’s nice how positivity leads to more positivity!

Today’s photo is of some homemade bread that my wife Mariko made. I guess she is getting ready for Valentine’s Day! As a guy, I often forget about this holiday coming up. I guess this is a not-so-subtle reminder isn’t it? 💘

Well, I think I’ll read a bit before going to bed. Take care of yourselves and have a great Thursday!

おやすみなさい！

-バロン Barron Fujimoto

Good enough

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I posted the photo below to my Instagram account and it got me thinking about why I pared down the amount of camera gear I use. It’s kind of a shift in thinking for me that has taken place the last year. I am now completely satisfied with “good enough”.

"My 2016 Camera Kit" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X-T10, 26.5mm, f/6.4, 1/55 sec, ISO3200
 “My 2016 Camera Kit” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

I have already blogged a bit about the benefits of simplifying the amount of camera gear I use, but one of the reasons why I can do it (and still be happy) is that the cameras in the photo are “good enough” for what I want to photograph. Specifically, the size of the images is more than enough for me. When I was using my Konica-Minolta 7D DSLR, I was already satisifed with 6 megapixels! My wishlist for future cameras just included low-light sensitivity.

When I upgraded to the Sony A77, the 24 megapixel images were huge, especially when I started shooting RAW! I realize now that it was overkill for my shooting style. And that is the important part… each person’s shooting style should dictate what camera they should use. For instance, I don’t shoot sports so I don’t have need for high-frame-rates. My X100T can shoot at 6 FPS which is “good enough”. I do not photograph wildlife or birds so I do not need a long telephoto lens. If I need to get closer, I have my legs. That is “good enough”. My photos will not be used on billboards so I do not need a 50 megapixel sensor. My cameras have 16 and 12 megapixels. And that is more than “good enough”.

So, what is the benefit of settling for “good enough”? Well, in the case of the camera, I am no longer suffering from “GAS” which stand for “Gear Acquisition Syndrome”. I don’t need to think about upgrading any longer. Sure, it is still fun to see the new cameras and technological advances, but now all of these new things do not have the pull on me that they once did. I actually think to myself how nice it is to NOT have the desire for the newest gear. I really feels great! And it is nice for my wallet too!

So now that I have experienced that with my camera gear, I am trying to think of how to apply the “good enough” philosophy to the rest of my life. I haven’t thought too much about it yet, but I am excited to see what unfolds.

I believe everyone should think about what is “good enough” for themselves, and not worry about maximizing on everything. Just use what makes you happy, then let go of the desire to buy more stuff. Enjoy what you have!

Sunrise

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"Sunrise" USA. Texas. Austin. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/320 sec, ISO400
 “Sunrise” USA. Texas. Austin. 2016.

こんばんは！How are you? Today’s photo is of the sun just rising above the clouds. I took it from my office this morning. I usually arrive early to work which is nice because I can really get a lot done in the hour or two before meetings start. I really am a “morning person”!

( YAWN ) What bores you?

This question (from WordPress’ Daily Prompt) is a tough one to answer for me… I can’t think of anything that really bores me! My kids often will come to me and say, “I’m bored”. This happens towards the end of long weekends or vacations when they get tired of their video games or computers. Luckily school will start soon for them!

I guess I used to get bored sometimes when having a conversation with someone, and the subject matter is just not interesting to me, or if I’ve heard the story before. (I feel a little bad about saying that!) But that was ages ago! If the subject of the conversation is not so interesting, I focus on the way the person is saying what they are saying, their conversational style, or imagine the reasons why they are sharing the information with me. Sometimes I will try to pinpoint the interesting things about that person (there’s always at least one thing!). I believe that you can learn something from anyone or any situation, so I am always trying to find value. If there isn’t something to learn externally, I try to internally observe what I am currently feeling and maybe I can improve myself in some way.

But back to the original question… I honestly cannot remember myself every saying, “I’m bored”. It’s really odd… I have a hard time imagining what boredom feels like. It’s like the part of my brain that activates the boredom emotion is just not there anymore. (insert joke here!)

By the way, I haven’t written anything from a Daily Prompt in a loooong time now, but it’s fun! I guess I might start doing it again every so often. You can go back and read my other Daily Prompts by sorting on the category if you are interested.

Well, Friday is almost here! I hope you have a good one!

I’m going to get some rest. おやすみなさい！

-B Barron Fujimoto

Back Home

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Hi all! How are you today/tonight?

Well, we are back home in Texas now. Today we flew on our normal route from Long Beach to Austin on JetBlue airlines. We really like flying out of Long Beach because it is a small airport and hardly any traffic or lines. Especially compared to the craziness that is LAX! But this morning’s flight was delayed by 2 hours, so we arrived in Austin at 5pm… not really too big of a deal, and waiting at the airport was ok since we had sandwiches that my mom had made for us. Also, I had time to finish The Martian! What a great book! 👍

USA. California. Long Beach. 2015.
USA. California. Long Beach. 2015.

The flight itself was pretty good, and I spent the time reading and also reviewing and deleting photos from my camera. I like to pare down the photos I keep. In the past, I would just keep every single photo, even if they were similar. I might have 8 photos that are almost exactly the same just because it didn’t cost me anything to keep more than one. But now, I really enjoy minimizing down to just the essentials. That means keeping only the best photo of a series. (I might cheat and keep two sometimes!) It’s so liberating to jettison all the extra photos right away after taking them. I feel like the longer you hold onto all those extra files, the longer they stay in your mind and clutter up your thoughts. Just choose one or two and be happy with those!

USA. 2015.
USA. 2015.

So, we made it home, but Austin is cold! Tonight will drop into the 30s again… ❄ Please take care to stay warm!

-B