My Last Instagram Photo

for the past few months i struggled with what i wanted to say on Instagram. did i want to continue making my stream exclusively for cellphone photographs, or did i want to start posting more of my film and DSLR photos? putting up old photos from the Contax T2 and giving them hundreds of tags ultimately felt pointless and hollow, just like all the likes from followback hungry Instaphotogs. perhaps i am in a photography funk, blaming all my inactivity on a platform that is supposed to inspire. but still, my problems with Instagram still lie in its "too perfect" calculated sheen too prevalent in social media - only a hundred times amplified here on Instagram. something about the meticulousness of the content feels cold and mechanical. the photos are nice and all, but i still cannot come to terms as to how most of these Instaphotogs get such perfect lighting all the time!

600 photographs into my photostream, and i feel like i've lost the steam to try and impress myself with all the likes and notifications. the whole point of it is lost, and becomes nothing but hollow gratification. perhaps it's time to focus my creative output elsewhere and leave this medium behind. maybe now is the time to take more photographs and slow down with all the sharing. after all, i imagine a photo one puts up on Instagram gets an average of 2.5 seconds of viewing before the user scrolls down to the next photograph of somebody's flat laid lunch. goodbye, Instagram. i will try not to miss all the photostreams of the cute girls i follow.

One Year

one year apart from each other's graduation ceremonies. amazing how time passes so quickly.

Helios 40-2 1.5/85

i took the plunge, and am now a proud owner of a Helios 40-2 1.5/85 lens. this particular unit already had a Canon EF mount attached to it, which saves me the trouble of picking up another M42 to EF mount converter. this is surprisingly a mammoth of a lens, weighing nearly one kilo. this gives the lens a solid feel to its build, though i imagine it'll be a challenge to shoot on the go. as one would imagine, it is a manual focus lens that requires a little bit of patience and luck to nail the perfect shot. i admit i haven't had the proper chance to field test the lens, but so far i'm rather pleased by the results. shooting wide open gives a softness to the photographs, and closing down several stops, the photographs come out surprisingly sharp like the Helios 44-2. not pin sharp, but sharper than what i expect from a lens of this reputation.

though this isn't my first time playing around with an 85mm lens, it is nice to actually own one. it gives me more to play with, granted i don't break my back or neck lugging this beast around. here's hoping a field test happens soon enough.