My Journey as a Photographer, continued.
It is currently 10:56pm when I am typing this. I guess it is nice having something to do and write every evening. I hope to make this a routine.
Carrying on from yesterday, I believe I left off with my photography over the summer, but there is actually so much more that happened along with that. As my still photography continued to improve, I also wanted to explore the video/cinema aspect of the creative world. I used to get hooked on ‘cinematic’ videos on youtube explaining how they got the shot, how they colorgraded it etc. Films like Blade Runner, Sicario and Tenet blew me away by the awesome cinematography and quality of their movies. My dream is to recreate something like those in the future with my own studio and produce my own movies.
It was the 3rd of January, 2024 and I was in Singapore Changi airport with my mother getting ready to fly to my boarding school in the UK. As any experienced traveller would do, I had to check out the variety of tech stores scattered around the airport, looking for some new invention that I can purchase. I also had to check out the dedicated Sony singapore outlet in the airport; I knew they sold really good stuff. I actually never really paid attention to that store before that day, as I slowly got into cameras I also found myself looking at cameras displayed at stores much more. The Sony store in the airport actually mainly sold cameras - maybe to travellers looking to capture their trips. As I was exploring the vast array of mirrorless cameras they sold, the A1, A9ii, A7RV, A6700 and A6400 one of them caught my eye instantly. The Sony FX3. 10MP stacked CMOS sensor, 7K oversampled to 4K, S-Cinetone etc. I had watched many youtube videos on that before and I didn’t really pay much attention to the camera itself, but more to the quality of the shots it produced and how beautiful they were. Right then and there I decided I needed to get that camera no matter what. I didn’t care if I didn’t know a single bit on videography or cinematography; I knew it was my only chance and opportunity. My mum agreed but she told me I had to do well in my academics. I told her that I’ll put my entirety of my PS4 and Xbox games as collateral if I didn’t fulfil my side of the deal. We had mere minutes to spare before boarding and she also bought me a Sony G-Master 24-70GMII lens to go with it. Now looking back at it, it is safe to say that decision was one of the best I have made in my entire life. I learnt in economics in my current year of school that life is all about decisions and always weighing the costs vs benefits of them. My purchase has been the biggest net win in my entire career. When I got the camera, I joined a videography forum on the internet, asking for help. Almost every single member told me that getting that camera was the biggest mistake. However, they did teach me so many new english terms and technicalities that I could not understand and had no idea I needed to understand in order to use the camera. Turned out, as a person who has never tried videography before, the FX3 was very daunting, and to top it all off, I didn’t even buy the right SD card needed to process the video properly. I needed at least a v90 SD card, but I had a v30 which did not suffice. During the 13 hour plane journey, I spent most of it just learning how to use the camera and taking the very first videos on that camera. I also religiously studied the ins and outs of Davinci Resolve on my Macbook Air where I edited the shots I took live on my laptop. Looking back at my first videos I could definitely make out some progress until now.
It has been a week since my trip to Italy. I brought the camera along with my Hasselblad and a bunch of cinema lenses I have collected over time to create my first documentary-length film. If you are curious it is mentioned on my main page under ‘Cinema’. Uploading that video to youtube has been a key part of my creative journey; proving to everyone that dedication and commitment will outshine any pessimism and doubt.
If you are still reading, thank you for the support. If you have a spare half hour, please do check out my videos on youtube. Ignore the ones that I made at the start, I didn’t know what I was doing.
Tomorrow I will be continuing on my introduction with an installment on my other projects including procuring a legendary camera. Thanks and goodnight.
My brand new Sony FX3 during the flight from Singapore to the UK
