I could make money off this, but...

It’s been a very long time since I wrote a blog. Not since August 2020 if the dates on previous posts are to be believed (I guess I can believe them?). Maybe writing more blog posts should be my new year resolution…that I carefully abandon after a little more than two weeks of effort. Or alternatively, maybe I should just not commit to stuff and do things as and when I feel like it. Which sounds much more liberating and a lot less like doing something just because. I guess already it is beginning to show that I really haven’t written a blog post in a long time…look at the state of this opening paragraph.

Anyway… (three sets of ellipsis already - maybe I’ve got back into the swing of things quicker than I thought)

The real reason for this long overdue blog post (or, blog post), is that something has been swirling around in my mind for a while now, something I have been trying to figure out about where I’m at, and where I want to be. In terms of my photography. Well, this is a photography blog after all.

I’ve been working hard on my photography for some time now. It’s something that gives me pleasure and, importantly, gives me a bit of time and space on my own (something I have always very much cherished). Over time, I’ve kinda taken it more and more seriously (hence a website dedicated to my photography I guess). So seriously, I’ve periodically pondered whether I may get to the stage at some point where I want to give everything up and just make photography my main source of income. But do I ever really want to do that? I’m not sure.

Something that I’ve been reflecting on a lot recently, is a tweet that was posted towards the end of last year:

Stop seeing someone’s hobby then immediately saying, “You can make money off this. Why don’t you sell it!”

Go lay down.

— The Nap Ministry (@TheNapMinistry) December 26, 2021

Now, I’ve had some lovely, encouraging words over the past couple of years about my photography. Usually prompted by me pondering out loud whether or not to more seriously try to sell my work (nothing like seeking out a bit of reassurance to boost the old ego periodically). And I have periodically seriously considered whether I make more of an effort, have some kind of shop element to this website, and start to more actively sell my work, but…

I think in many ways I kinda like things as they are now. I go out, take photographs, if someone is interested in buying one, I’m open to doing so and will take the steps necessary to professionally print and deliver my work. I’ve even been approached (twice) to have my work in publications. I like this way of working. It’s less about using my work to make money, and more about going out and enjoying the art. I am not putting pressure on myself to get “bangers” I can sell. I’m just enjoying getting out there and learning and developing the craft. I don’t have a professional quality printer at home (because £££s) and so I have to rely on a print service. Which is fine. But I can’t help but think it will be kinda stressful if I start dealing with an increased number of orders (not that I’m expecting hundreds obvs) and having to liaise with a print service and then organise the posting of the work (the costs and the logistics of it all make my head spin).

Listening to professionals talk about their life also puts me off a little. You think being a professional landscape photographer (for example) would mean freedom to go out whenever and be out there all the time, just taking photographs. The reality is quite different. Sure, it looks like a cool existence on their various YouTube channels. Driving off to some Epic Location for some Epic Light and capturing some Epic Photos. But I know that’s not the reality of their lives. There’s paperwork, emails, the ever dissolving line that divides work and personal…I dunno. Is it really “better”? Or is it “better” to just go out and enjoy my photography, produce work that I am proud of without pressures, without a profit motive, and sell work on the basis of enquiries from people interested in buying something? Is it better to be reactive or proactive in selling my work?

I appreciate there are good counter-arguments to this line of thinking. By selling your work you can invest more in your equipment and produce work that one might feel is better. It can be an investment into getting more out of your hobby, rather than a pure profit-making exercise. But is that a good enough reason? If I am happy with the work I produce, why should I worry about getting better cameras/lenses/gear? Shouldn’t I just make the most of what I’ve got?

Ultimately, it’s a hobby. It’s something that gives me time, space and peace amidst all the chaos enveloping all of our lives. It’s something that’s distinct from my work life, it isn’t about earning a living, it’s about enjoying the living. It’s time, once or twice a week, where I can just be. I could make money off this, but do I really want to? I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m not opposed to the idea entirely, but I’m equally not “sold” (pardon the pun) on it being something I should do. It’s something I’m sure I will continue to weigh up and debate internally for some time yet.

Of course, if I put a shop on this website by the end of the year, you’ll know I’ve come down on “fuck it…SHOW ME THE MONEY! I DON’T CARE ANYMORE.” Hell, just give me the Thomas Heaton life without the paperwork, emails and fuzzy lines between work and family life please.

What kind of photographer even am I?

Those of you who follow me on social media will know I am currently in Spain on holiday. At the time of writing, I’m just about coming to the end of the two week break and mentally preparing for the journey home (and the impending 14 day quarantine we will have to endure - you can read more on my thoughts on this here). Obviously, part of my mental preparation is sitting down in my in-laws’ study and writing this blog post. Horses for courses I guess…

One of the things that I am forced to confront whenever we are in southern Spain (Sevilla to be precise), is my approach to photography. Particularly in terms of the landscape/seascape photography I’ve come to enjoy over the past few years in various part of Kent. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), landscape photography here in and around Sevilla is a bit…well…tricky. Whilst the sunrises are very do-able this time of year (currently around 0730 which is very pleasurable!), there is so little in the way of cloud and interest in the sky, it makes it very difficult to get interesting landscape shots. Effectively every day is cloudless and hot. The sun rises - there’s no cloud. The sun sets - there’s no cloud. The sun is in the sky - it’s hard to bear being anywhere for anything beyond an hour or two (by way of example, it was 28 degrees at sunrise the other day…and easily 40 in the sun during the day). As a result, I have to adapt and make use of the other opportunities available to me and that means…street photography.

Not long before we left for Spain, I took the plunge and bought a Fuji XT-3. I’d been in love with it since I first saw it a couple of years ago, and it became my dream camera. Having cashed in my season ticket, I figured it was now or never. So I picked one up along with a 23mm lens (35mm equivalent full frame). I should point out here this isn’t to replace my Nikon D7200 (which I love). No, this is to complement it. I love the D7200 for landscapes and seascapes. It fulfils all my needs on that front. What it is less good for, is carrying around as a casual camera for on the fly photos and street/travel photography. Which is where the XT-3 comes in.

Although Andalucia is a struggle for landscape photography (at least when we come here…I know some great spots, but they don’t really work this time of year due to the sky etc), it comes into it’s own for street photography. The harsh light makes for lots of interesting deep shadows, making for good potential compositions (whether I see them or not is a different matter…). This is particularly helped in Sevilla with the interesting architecture acting as a backdrop (particularly handy with a 35mm equivalent lens).

In terms of my approach, I’m not the most confident of people, so I am not so keen on outright approaching people, but equally I’m nervous about the potential for people to approach me and ask what I am doing (funnily enough yesterday a Spaniard was shouting at me because he thought I was taking pictures of him when I was actually taking photos of some bikes!). So I tend to find places where there is an interesting backdrop or interesting light and use that as the composition, waiting for people to walk through. I make it easier on myself by telling myself I am taking pictures of buildings or light as my subject and if someone walks into the frame, then they are purely incidental. I’m not sure whether this is a good approach overall, but I feel it is helpful as I am feeling my way around street photography.

Experimenting on the streets has got me thinking a lot as well about the old question of “what type of photographer am I?”. I realise I describe myself as a landscape/seascape/street photographer, but I also like woodland photography (which I guess is a subset of landscape) and abstract. So what’s my genre? Maybe it’s just “photography”? I have been thinking about this a lot since watching one of Sean Tucker’s videos (see below), and I’m thinking less about what kind of pigeon hole do I want to be in, and more, what kinds of things do I enjoy taking photos of. Other than sports and wildlife, I don’t think there is much I don’t like taking photos of.

It’s very easy to get into that mindset of curating a brand. Making sure your social media is consistent and, particularly with Instagram, ensuring your feed has a particularly style. But does that really matter? Maybe if you are a professional with a particular approach that will attract clients looking for a specific thing, but for the rest of us, surely it’s a case of, as Sean Tucker says, taking whatever photographs makes us happy? If they garner likes, great. If they result in approaches for work, even better. But for me, my focus is on trying to learn new skills, improve my photography in different ways and, ultimately, enjoy what I’m doing. It’s one of the reasons I’ve not heavily gone down the road of selling prints. I feel that getting in too deep with additional pressures will result in me losing my love for getting out with my camera. I don’t want to get bogged down into what sells and what doesn’t, and so I am very much taking the approach of “if you like a photo and would like a print, feel free to drop me a line and we can chat about it”.

The bottom line for me is photography is about getting out there and taking the photographs I enjoy, in whatever genre that so happens to be. Some people will always try to fit others into categories (as well the photos themselves), but as a wise man once said: oh well, whatever, never mind.

Looking back on 2019 and looking forward to 2020...

A little later than I had originally intended (I should know by now that Christmas and New Year with two kids means that time is in short supply for things like this!), but thought I’d briefly reflect on 2019 and think about what’s next for 2020. Let’s start by looking back…

On 2nd January 2019 I wrote a blog post out lining a few aims and objectives for the coming year, so how successful was I in achieving them?

1) Do more video work.

TICK. Well, I did do “more video work” in the sense I actually filmed, edited and published a YouTube video. My trip to Scotland in the summer of 2019 to meet my mum’s real family gave me the perfect opportunity to experiment with creating a short film, particularly as I went without my wife and children. I was quite pleased with the end result (see below), but I’ve not created anymore since.

2) More street photography.

TICK. I’ve done more street photography here and in Spain over the past 12mths, but I still need to improve my approach. I’m still very much on phase 1 and phase 2 (see here), but I feel like I’ve improved a bit in this area.

3) Print more.

FAIL. I had good intentions to print and keep photos in a scrapbook, but I’ve just not kept on top of this and I’ve not printed anything for months.

4) Blog more.

FAIL. Again, same as above. I had good intentions, but it’s just not happened.

5) Discover new locations.

TICK. I’ve tried a couple of new locations over the past 12mths (Botany Bay, Isle of Grain, Ashenbank Wood) but I do need to expand on this in 2020 and explore the county a bit more widely. I have some ideas in mind, but let’s see if I follow through on them.

6) Oh yeah, 365 Project type stuff.

SEMI-FAIL. Again, best intentions, but after over half the year I gave up and just lost all motivation. I think this wasn’t helped by restricting myself to black and white.

Over the course of 2019, I’ve really felt that my photography has improved a great deal and I’m starting to gain confidence in the quality of the images that I’ve created. I think partly this has been down to being better organised, particularly for sunrise shoots, as well as honing my technique. In terms of organisation, I’ve tried to make sure I am on location over half-an-hour before sunrise (rather than minutes before sunrise) as I appreciate now that often the best light is just before the sun peeps out over the horizon. I’ve also taken to making a hot breakfast in the morning and plonking it into a Therma-pot so that I can have breakfast on the go rather than leaving the house after I’ve eaten it. This has certainly helped to ensure that I arrive on location in good time and can concentrate on getting a good composition for that early morning light (as an aside, I still much prefer to sunrise to sunset).

To give an example of how I think I’ve improved, this is a shot from early 2019 taken in Dungeness (I arrived after the best light had happened):

And here’s one taken of the same boat in Dungeness, but this time I arrived in plenty of time before sunrise:

There’s probably not a whole lot in it, but I much prefer the second image to the first. I think I took it after the sun had risen (and therefore around the same time as the first), but because I had arrived early I had time to play around and get some different compositions and better evaluate the conditions, rather than rushing to get a shot before the best of the light had gone.

I also feel like my woodland photography improved greatly this year. We have some great local woods with lots of potential and plenty of silver birch trees dotted around (as well as wild deer, which is always breath-taking to see). For example, here are a few woodland shots I took in 2018:

And here are some taken in 2019:

I definitely feel there has been a big step forward there (to the extent that I even printed off one of the above and gave it to a family member as a gift for Christmas). I still feel I need to work it more, but I think spending virtually every weekend in the woods for the best part of a month really helped me to get a clearer sense of how to compose decent woodland shots.

Overall I feel strides have been made, and I am growing in confidence to the extent I am mulling over selling prints in 2020 (although it remains to be seen whether I am actually prepared to take that step just yet). The key for me has been getting out regularly, practicing all the time, working some scenes that I know well until I get shots that I am really happy with and being more organised in my trips out. And I haven’t even mentioned the biggest change in my shooting this year…

Early in 2019 I switched up my trusty D3200 for the D7200. A big leap in terms of what the camera does, but still a crop-sensor Nikon. I’ve been absolutely thrilled with the camera so far. Of course in many ways it’s not about the camera but the person behind it, but it’s undoubtedly the case that the D7200 has made a number of things easier. For example, the increased number of focus points have helped greatly (from 11 on the D3200 to 51), as has the resolution on live view (I’m better able to zoom in on screen and manually focus than I was on the D3200 which tended to look very fuzzy after hitting the zoom button a couple of times). Much as I loved the D3200, I certainly feel the D7200 has helped me to take things up a level.

As for 2020, I’m not sure where I’ll be 12mths from now (in an abstract rather than literal sense!). I want to start exploring the possibility of selling images, but I’m not going to commit to that just yet. I also want to challenge myself by exploring new locations and getting some new compositions. But beyond that, I think I just want to keep practicing, improving and keeping to my new regime of getting out early and not rushing my shots! We’ll see where that takes me…

All the best for 2020!

Experimenting with street photography

For the past couple of years I’ve mainly been concentrating on improving my landscape/seascape photography. It’s what I’ve been most naturally drawn to, not least because I find it relatively calming. However, since trying to take my photography more seriously, I’ve been determined to push myself and to learn new skills. So I’ve been trying my hand at a bit of street photography.

Fairly recently I watched a video by Josh Katz about street photography. Josh outlined four main approaches (or phases) of street photography:

1) Phase 1: Photograph people when they don’t know they are being photographed (eg finding an interesting scene and waiting for people to walk into shot).

2) Phase 2: Taking the shot as they walk towards you, but pretend you are photographing something else (eg by keep firing shots even after they have walked past).

3) Phase 3: Approaching strangers and asking if you can take their portrait.

4) Phase 4: Candid photographs where it is obvious you are taking their picture but you haven’t asked for their permission

I tend to see both Phase 1 and Phase 2 as my go to approaches. I’m not particularly comfortable with street photography generally, and certainly not that confident at approaching and talking to people (even less keen on blatantly taking their photo without permission). I’m fairly shy and reserved, so those first two options are about the only ones I feel remotely comfortable with doing (I’ve done Phase 3, but I have to build up a lot of courage before I do it).

Summer seems to me to be a great time to delve into a bit of street photography though. Bright sunshine and harsh shadows make for difficult conditions with landscapes/seascapes, but make great conditions for pounding the streets with a camera in hand. Even better when you are in Spain for two weeks in July/August every year and face boring blue skies without any interest and often unexciting sunsets.

In fact, this summer, during our usual two week holiday in Spain, I decided that I was going to particularly concentrate on my street photography. Seville is a beautiful city with lots of interesting buildings and structures, and it makes a perfect backdrop for a bit of street photography. Luckily I managed to get out and about a few times with my camera and a 35mm lens (aps-c), even managing to spend a morning in the city the day we were due to fly home, catching a few more last minute shots.

Now, I’m not one that is ordinarily too bothered about likes etc on Instagram, it’s not important, what is important is that you like the shots you have taken. But I have noticed a marked difference in the number of likes I get for my street photos. I’m not sure if they’re either not very good, my followers follow me because of my landscape photos and they’re less interested in street, whether it’s holiday time so fewer people are flicking through Instagram than normal…I don’t know. Regardless, I’m largely happy with some of the ones I have taken (although of course you always feel you could do better) and maybe that’s all that matters. I’ll be interested to know what you think.

Scotland, family discoveries and a bit of photography...

A couple of weeks back I took myself off on a long drive to Scotland for a few days away. For those that aren’t aware, a few years before my mother passed away, she had managed to track down her biological mother. Sadly her mother had already passed away by the time she discovered who she was (she had been told that her mother died in a car crash when she was young, it turned out she actually passed away 25 years ago so mum had missed the chance to meet her), but she had also managed to track down a brother (shared mother, different father).

After mum passed away, I had intended to go up to Scotland and learn more about her biological mother and meet family members we didn’t know we had. The opportunity finally presented itself to me this summer, so I booked a few nights in a Premier Inn in Dundee (topped up with a few nights staying at a good friend’s house) and made plans to make the trip north (a drive of approximately 500 miles!). Of course, this also presented an opportunity to explore new locations and give my photography a bit of a boost (summer is a difficult time of year for sunrise and sunset photohgraphy). Not only was it an opportunity to take photos in some new locations, I also used it as an opportunity to shoot a vlog.

Edinburgh at night Calton Hill.

Making a vlog has been something I’ve been thinking about for some time. I’m not wholly comfortable with the idea, I’m not keen on being filmed and putting my face out there. I’ve always much preferred writing as a means of communication, for a variety of reasons (the ability to more carefully craft what I want to communicate, for example). I also wasn’t sure I had the required equipment to do it well. I’ve done a little bit of filming at work for things here and there, but they have been made using a smartphone. I don’t have mics or a camera dedicated to video. However, I purchased a Manfrotto mini-tripod and smartphone clamp a little while back thinking they might help in terms of recording footage, so I thought that maybe the combination of a decent smartphone camera and a mini tripod might make it do-able.

Something I have tried to always do since taking my photography more seriously, is to take on new challenges. Whether it be going up to people in the street and asking if I can take their picture, or trying to take candid street photographs, I’m keen to try to learn new skills and take my photography further. Of course, shooting video doesn’t necessarily help with my photography, but I figured it would be good to learn some new skills and try to shoot and edit a short video to see how I get on (there may be additional benefits in my workplace too).

The Angel of the North.

I tried throughout the trip to take a variety of different types of video. I shot some time lapse video of the journey there, and a couple of locations I visited, as well as shooting footage of me talking to camera. One thing I found tricky throughout was trying to remember to shoot video footage wherever I found myself. My priority was always the photography, the video was a secondary element to documenting my trip. This meant I sometimes missed out on recording things that I think would have been good additions to the fininshed video, but I was fairly relaxed about that, not least because I wanted to keep the video relatively short.

Editing the video was a whole different ballgame. I’ve plenty of experience of using iMovie on iOS, but I’d never played around with iMovie on a Mac, which was far more complex in what it could do. I found some elements of creating the video a bit frustrating (sometimes trimming elements seemed more difficult than they should have been - but I’m not sure if that was down to me or the software, and I found it difficult to insert text elements exactly as I’d like), and the overall process took much longer than I anticipated. I think I must have spent a couple of hours playing around with the footage and getting it just right (and even then I have noticed some errors since I published it). One thing I was quite lucky with was the soundtrack. Apple provide an increasing number of free music via iMovie that you can incorporate into your project. Music can be an absolute nightmare in terms of repurposing on video, not least due to licensing, and most options for freely available music come with the requirement to pay or subscribe to a service (as far as I can tell anyway - do let me know in the comments if there are other options!). Fortunately there was at least one track I could use in iMovie that seemed to me to match the mode of the piece.

I’m not sure whether this will be the first and only or first of many, but I think I learnt a lot about putting one together, even if this one wasn’t a complete success. And, more than anything else, it’s a nice way to document the trip and the things I learnt about my family, not least for our children who were unable to join me on this occasion. Hopefully we’ll have a family holiday in Scotland in due course. Not sure about going for an 11hr car journey with two kids in the car though…

Tenba Skyline 12 Shoulder Messenger Bag

Ok, probably not the kit blog post you might have been expecting (eagle-eyed social media folks will know I’ve recently purchased a Nikon D7200 - more to come!), but not long ago I treated myself to a new camera bag (my third already) and thought I’d share a few thoughts about it. Because, well, camera bags are a perennial pain in the ar…

I spotted the Tenba bags a little while ago (think I first spotted them in Digital Camera magazine a few months back), and they looked like the kind of thing I was after. I’ve had a little (Nikon branded) messenger bag back from when I bought my Nikon D3200 (the bag was a “I need a bag for this right now!!!!” moment), and I’ve been thinking I probably should invest in a new one for when I’m out and about in the streets or not intending to take my tripod with me. This looked to me like it might fit the bill.

A couple of weeks ago I was poking around in our local camera shop (hi Canterbury Camera Centre!) and spotted the range on display so thought it would be a good opportunity to have a good poke around and see if they might be suitable. Originally I had the 13 in mind, but it soon became clear on having a good look at it that it was actually slightly too big for my needs (one DSLR and three lenses). The 13 had space for a further two lenses and when I thought about it I realised actually there would be a lot of fumbling around if I bought the bigger version (it only opens from the top and the lenses would effectively be stacked on top of each other, separated by a divider). On reflection, I plumped for the 12. It was big enough to carry what I have without being too unwieldy (I think three lenses is sufficient for a trip out and about). I have to say, I’ve been really happy with it.

Inside…with my old camera.

Despite coming in at a fairly reasonable £55 (-ish), it looks really professional and feels like it’s made from good quality materials. The zips are strong and the material is waterproof (it’s made of “water-repellant 600D fabric” apparently), which is..well…good. On the inside there are a couple of mesh pockets to put little bits and bobs you might need (big enough for a couple of circular filters) and that’s about it other than the obvious storage space for the camera and lenses with two velcro dividers so you can shift them around. The zippable section at the front also includes a small pocket.

As I said above, I’ve been really happy with this bag, it’s just the right size for carrying around the city or for times when I don’t need so much stuff. However, it does have one flaw: it opens the “wrong way”. I say “wrong way” it quite possibly opens that way for a reason, but I find it slightly fiddly that it opens away from the body rather than towards. I guess this is good in some respects (the zips aren’t then on the outside of the bag), but I just find it a little annoying when I need to grab a lens quickly and have to faff around trying to unzip the bag and open it. But that’s a fairly minor grumble to be honest.

So…yeah…that’s a camera bag review. A part of me feels it won’t be the last…

A life in cameras

Last week I had a ponder over all the cameras I’ve had over the years. As far back as I can remember I’ve always had a camera close by. For me, cameras were second only to personal music players and headphones as something I couldn’t ever imagine being without. Some cameras I loved. Some hugely frustrating. But I learnt something from all of them and I would be half the photographer I am without having had them.

So, here is my life in cameras…

1. Kodak Instamatic

Image c/o Atelierele Albe on Flickr.

I’m not 100% certain of the model number, but I’m pretty sure this is the first camera I used. And…well…I did not get on with it at all. Mainly I hated the shutter button. I used to find I’d have to really put some force behind it to fire it off, which inevitably meant blurry photos due to camera shake. I could not get it right. I’m sure there were the odd one or two that worked, which is maybe why I persevered and didn’t just give up. But it sure was a frustrating camera.

2. Halina 260

This was the first camera I remember really using regularly. I mainly remember the little switch to turn the flash on and being really excited whenever I fired it up (you could hear this powering up noise when you switched it on). It wasn’t the best camera in the world, but it was the first one that got me taking photos regularly without getting frustrated!

3. Canon Sure Shot AF-7

Image c/o Steve Harwood on Flickr.

Yes, I actually had a Canon camera! I bought this one when I started working on the photographic counter in Boots back in the early 90s. I seem to recall this was also the camera I took to uni with me. So mainly it was used for lots of drunken photos…I mean, field trips. Ahem. Actually, I really liked this camera and I think it was probably the best I had used at this stage. Of course, I didn’t stick with Canon…

4. Olympus Mju II


This was the camera I really fell in love with. It really was a beautiful little camera. It felt super compact (it literally fits in one hand) and I took some photos of it I was really proud of (at the time). It really was a joy to use, and it is one of many reasons why I held off switching to digital for a long time. I absolutely loved this camera. Even now, I look back on it with great fondness. To the extent I really need to go up in the loft and seek it out again…yes, it’s in the loft…somewhere…what a way to treat something you love!

5. Olympus C-60Z (no Creative Commons licensed images available)

This was my first foray into digital photography. I seem to recall choosing this one as it had a decent pixel count (6.1mp) and a good zoom (3x optical and 12x digital zoom). Looking back now, though, it was light years behond the digital cameras we have now. The screen was tiny and obviously resolution has come on some way since the beginning of the 21st century. Mind you, I have had some shots from it that I’ve been really happy with.

Shot with my Olympus C-60Z

6. Lumix TZ-6

I still use this camera today (although it looks like some sea water has managed to infiltrate the lens as there are some discolourations behind the front element (I noticed it after a trip to the beach). It’s got a fantastic wide-angle view and takes really good photos. I’m annoyed about the issue with the lens (although it doesn’t appear to affect the photos), but I really enjoyed using this camera. If I were to get another compact at some point, I would definitely go for a Lumix one.

Taken with my Lumix TZ-6.

7. Nikon D3200

And so now we have the D3200, my current camera. I have to say, it’s been an excellent purchase and entry into the world of DSLRs. My intention when buying it was to finally start to manually take photos rather than relying on the automatic functions of the past. It took me a while to get my head around it and finally start to play around with apertures, shutter speeds, ISOs etc, but I’ve made huge progress since picking this up. In that way, it comes very close to being the camera that I love the most (close second to the Mju II). Question is…what will come next…?

What about you? What was the first camera that made you fall in love with photography?