I have been working quite intensively on my current project “Small World” over the last couple of months. It is something little bit different from my usual landscape photography. Therefore, I am quite curious how everything turns out in the future. Right now I am enjoying it very much.
As often happens, I got this idea thanks to lucky coincidence during my trip to Scotland earlier this year. I was experimenting with Mamiya RB 67 close up possibilities and I wanted to photograph a detail of small shell on Luskentyre beach. It was very cold and windy, and at the end of day I was tired and to be honest also bit lazy to change a lens on my camera (downside of using prime lenses). Therefore I did try to get as close as possible to subject matter with wide angle lens, and I was immediately blown away with what I saw in the view finder. The little shell got suddenly very into very different perspective with its huge surroundings. I was even more excited about it after I scanned the negative at home.
Title: Small World 1, Camera: Mamiya RB 67 Pro SD, Lens: Sekor 50 mm, Film: Kodak T-Max 100, Exposure: 1/15, f 16, Harris, Scotland, 2014
Thanks to this experience in Scotland I realized that I had not been paying much attention to these small things on my previous journeys. Prior this project while hiking in the mountains, I only looked far away to see the big mountains and I never looked down for little stones, or tiny flowers. The same happened at the sea coast, I always looked at the horizons, the waves, the vastness of the sea and I very rarely looked down under my feet to discover very fascinating world of small things.
Title: Small World 2, Camera: Mamiya RB 67 Pro SD, Lens: Sekor 50 mm, Film: Kodak T-Max 100, Exposure: 1/30, f 22, Vallorcine, France, 2014
I am glad that this project helps me now to focus more on these very small details, which might be overlooked otherwise. It is very dynamic and fascinating small world. These little things are appearing and disappearing very quickly, and I have found it so fascinating that now I am very often crawling down on my knees looking for tiny stones, shells etc. while others are enjoying nice huge vistas.
Title: Small World 3, Camera: Mamiya RB 67 Pro SD, Lens: Sekor 50 mm, Film: Ilford HP5+, Exposure: 1/60, f 16, Vallorcine, France, 2014
I will add more photographs from this project to our gallery section soon.
Stay tuned and enjoy!
This is how it looks when I photograph Small World. Photo taken with iPhone.