Author: Nina_Kirienko

Owner of Old Girl Photography. Graduate in Digital Photography at Durham College. I am especially drawn to fine art, architectural, landscape and community event photography.  The world is full of fascinating natural and man-made landmarks, many of which tell compelling stories of survival or imagination or both.  My aim is to find and photograph as many of them as I can. When I do photograph people, I most enjoy portraying them in a place or situation that inspires them. I have an infinite curiosity about the world. I'm not happy unless I'm learning.

I Like It – That’s All That Matters

Artistic Ideas, Learning, Photography

Some of us amateur photographers participate in competitions, in our local camera clubs and even more broadly in open events such as national competitions or perhaps in specialized events such as landscape or wildlife photographer of the year in our own countries or globally.

The reasons we enter competitions vary widely. For some of us, it is about seeking recognition, so let’s just admit it out of the gate. For others, it’s validation, confirming that others see your work the way you do. Still for others, it’s about self-development and improving our own scores year over year. We also seek out points of comparison to see what we might work on next.

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Social Media That is Not So Social

Career, Life, Photography

Many of us who are gear geeks like myself get a bit of a thrill in chasing not only the latest releases, but also the rumours about the latest releases. We develop our own stable of reliable sources. Some of these could be direct contacts with manufacturers, some could be other news gathering bodies that take great pains to get it right.

While I do enjoy reading about the latest rumours, they do nothing more than give me a bit of a rush. It’s the anticipation of something new and exciting. But reality eventually sets in and I get on with my day.

One such source for me has been “Canon Rumors”, a website operated for the last 14 years by the same guy. I’m not going to mention his name here and you will see why shortly. The information posted has been very reliable and very fairly presented, accompanied by a rating system that clearly indicated how likely the rumour was to materialize and how reliable his source was.

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Another First for Nikon – A New Lens That Comes with a Health Warning

Gear, Life, Photography, Tools

A couple of weeks ago, Nikon announced a new lens aimed at those (likely professional) folks who want reach, speed and superb image quality. It is the NIKKOR Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S, designed for their flagship mirrorless camera, the Z9. Its cost ($14,000 USD) will make it inaccessible to most, but for those who can, there is one additional consideration: it comes with a health warning. Some people should not use it.

This is a first – I’ve never seen a health warning attached to any camera equipment. I had to explore that further, and found myself quite concerned. This is the actual warning that appeared in their press release on January 18, 2022:

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A Treatise on Tripods

Gear, Tools, Videos

Do you own a tripod? Do you use it? Is it something that sits in the back of the car rarely seeing the light of day? Do they annoy you? Are they more trouble than they are worth?

I see the full gamut of opinions on tripods, with photographers of all genres either swearing by them or swearing at them. Over the course of 40 years of photography, I’ve used all brands at all price points. I’ve now landed on a collection (yes, more than one) that works for me.

This is a YouTube video piece that I hope will help you make an informed decision about using tripods. Hopefully you’ll find a few points that you hadn’t considered – or even a few points that you had that lead you to a specific decision. Leave me a comment here or there about what works for you.

Vernacular Photography

Artistic Ideas, Interesting Stuff, Life, My Community, Photography

Hello and Happy 2022! Hope you had a pleasant holiday season and were able to enjoy it with family and friends, despite our ongoing Covid challenges. As mentioned previously, I spent the holidays working at a camera store and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. But now it’s back to my photography. I’m dedicating myself to it this year, and hope to show much more new work shortly, so stay tuned.

But learning continues to be a focus as well. I thought I had heard of almost everything to do with photography – yes, there might be some obscure piece of equipment I had never heard of, but in terms of genres, I thought I knew it all. Not so. Listened to a great podcast driving to work about a totally new (to me) genre called “vernacular photography”. What is it? Read on.

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Never Say Never

Expertise, Life, Photography

I did something last week that I never thought I would do again. I started a new job. That’s right. I’m back in the workforce, earning bucks. It’s not full-time and may not even be for a long time, but it is an official job.

A few weeks ago, my local camera store held a job fair. Anyone interested could meet with management and have a chat. I happened to hear about the opportunity and thought, why not. I love talking to people about photography, I love helping people discover something new, and to be truthful, Covid has had such a bad effect on my psyche that getting out into a public space on a regular basis would be good for me.

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Verify Your Identity

Artistic Ideas, Expertise, Fine Art, Interesting Stuff, Laws, Photography

October is a wonderful month in so many ways. Cooler temperatures, changing scenery, more exciting landscapes top my list. But it is also a month for new and exciting technology. Many photography companies, whether hardware or software producers, release new products and new updates to existing products. This month has been ridiculously full of pent-up demand for new stuff and the manufacturers did not disappoint.

This article won’t review all of that. Many blog and vlog posts have already done so. Instead, I want to talk about one feature nobody seems to have really highlighted. Last week, Adobe released the latest versions of Photoshop and Lightroom, to much fanfare and focus on its superb and enhanced capabilities. The new masking tools are phenomenal. You can also do more and more with automation and “neural filters”, and even drop in assets and have them automatically be absorbed and “harmonized” into the scene you are creating. But there is even more for you to know.

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The World Has Changed

Learning, Life, My Community

We are all looking forward to a “return to normal” as Covid-19 is wrestled to the ground. We seem to get hit in the face repeatedly as we wrestle though. But I’m confident that eventually, there will be no Covid-19 driven restrictions.

But the world has changed, and normal just won’t be that. We see signs of it everywhere – job postings that are not filled because potential employees are afraid of being in service industries, chip shortages, no trucks to ship products, no fresh produce, gas prices that are ridiculously high, more and more people working from home, and my favourite, cameras that are announced one day and cancelled the next.

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Is It Possible Not to Want the Latest Gear?

Gear, Photography, Tools

I’ve had an interesting experience since my last post (more than one, but only one worth writing about). The Canon EOS R3 was officially released, after many many months of rumor. The announcement confirmed everything rumored.

Full frame, completely new sensor, instant on, super high speed continuous shooting, multiple people and object tracking modes, eye-controlled autofocus, integrated grip for portrait and landscape shooting, huge ISO range. Additionally, file transfer through multiple methods, including wifi and network cable directly to camera. And lastly, new connection options in the hotshoe, allowing for seamless connection of microphones and other accessories.

And I have absolutely no interest in it.

Say what?

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Travelling with Friends

Landscapes, Life, Nature, Photography, travel

I recently took a trip – the first one in a long time. It wasn’t to an exotic far-away location, but rather about 3 hours north of my home. The area is very popular with city residents and tourists alike, because of its small towns, wide open tracts of land covered with trees, rock formations that are part of the Canadian Shield and fresh air.

I don’t travel much with friends, at least driving in the same vehicle and staying in the same hotel suite. I instead prefer to meet my companions at our desired destination and prefer to have a quiet place to myself at the end of the day. At least, that’s what I’ve concluded now after several trips done in more traditional fashion.

The bigger challenge, and the purpose of this post, is how to manage my photographic interests while travelling with others. It is hugely difficult when travelling with those who are not photographers – family especially. I won’t go into those details, for fear of alienating any family member who might choose to read this (ha!).

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