shooting on the beach

My camera habits have changed.

Each iteration of my smart phones has had an improved camera. So improved that I find myself shooting primarily with my phone camera rather than my Sony NEX-6.

I bought the Sony on the recommendation of fellow blogger Gary Denness, who, at the time, was living in Mexico City. He has now moved back to England and continues to publish some of his photographs at Mexile 2.0.

His recommendation of the Sony was a perfect fit for me. But I do not take it out as often as I once did.

That is a shame because as good as the camera is in my Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, it cannot capture the depth that the Sony can with its interchangeable lenses.

Last week I took the Sony out of the backpack, where it spends most of its days, and wandered off to the beach in west Melaque to see if I could find anything interesting. To me, "interesting" is a shot that catches the essence of what I am shooting without becoming cliché.

My first shot is at the top of this essay. What could better encapsulate being at the beach than a shot of fishing boats in the foreground and the ocean behind them?

Of course, that is about as cliché as a photograph can get. That exact coupling can be found on post cards around the world -- whether in Greece, on The Seychelles, or even in west Melaque. It was definitely not the shot I was looking for.

When I looked at the ground, I saw what I thought would be a far better shot. If I wanted to capture the essence of a fishing village, what better way to do that than with a shot of a fisherman's tool?

Nets almost always make good subjects for photographs because of their depth and detail. But this one had the added value of looking as if it might be a sea creature -- some sort of Irwin Allen jellyfish plotting the downfall of western civilization.

But all of this is mere musing. What I need to do is take the Sony out for other strolls.

And I am going to do that right now. I need to wander down to the immigration office to get a shot to accompany my essay about the process of obtaining a replacement permanent resident card.

We will talk again then.