It's been a week in a new body. Weather sealed magnesium that tracks its subject fast with a confident beep. Ergonomic in hand, stabilized, double dialed, and dainty. A new (old) olympus om-d e-m5 arrived on my doorstep a week ago and i've done a week's worth of shooting. Although it was supposed to replace my microscopic Pentax Q7, I began to wrestle with the idea of why I had initially bought it. The digital realm of opinion and thought when talking about subjects like gear (camera,climbing,audio,computers ect) often move in a trance of speaking in metrics, memes, and thoughtless voyeurism. I like to have the thought that this doesn't spill out into the living world, but I find myself spouting pointless numbers at people too, and often overhear others doing the same. It's the weakness of the nerdy and the needy.
The end results from the E-M5 are pristine. The colors eek out like fresh oil paints, the prime glass is sharp and gives each shot a depth I couldn't dribble out of the pentax. The larger sensor allows me to take shots in the dark that would be chaotic confetti in the other. So after using a new camera body that on paper outshines all the aspects of my previous, why am I left in a deep confliction. I think I began to remember why I took photos in the first place. I had never seen my photography hobby in any artistic sense, I always believed that realm should be left to others far better skilled than me. I still refuse to learn much outside of the basic mechanics of a camera, nonetheless composition. I had always viewed my photos as autobiographical journalism, relics rife with nostalgia and moments in time to wander about. The years of shooting with the same pentax body and glass made me fully understand its capabilities and output. Thus the memories spitted out of the miniature magnesium are always a linear continuation of the timeline captured. And its unique qualities took on a mental and physical extension of myself and my documented history. But the body is a tool, and to alter it distorts your connection with its past. It doesn't help that online discourse and big numbers urge you to buy newer and better. I fell for it, but it had helped me realize something. If not for the camera, the windows of the past wouldn't have been so obscured. Memories captured of friends, outings, my first few outdoor climbs, meeting others, bouldering in hueco, drunken nights at the karaoke bar, gruelling at work, the odd people that still bubble in my mind, my family, blood moons and sandy dunes, and death marches on holy mountains. For that, it's only needed to be grateful to capture any of it at all