Light and Easy

I love walking. For years, before my photography business took off to a point where I had a wedding or a bar mitzvah almost every weekend, my leisurely Saturday routine involved waking up around 9 AM, walking to Panera Bread, having a leisurely breakfast, walking from Squirrel Hill to downtown Pittsburgh, from there walking to the South Side, having a cup of coffee and reading a book at either the Beehive coffee shop or at the Tuscuny Café, stopping by at a couple of used books stores and taking tons of photographs along the way. Taking pictures was the main part of the whole trip – from week to week I would alternate my routes slightly, just to have the opportunity to photography new places and new people.

The only thing that I did not like about those trips was lugging a huge digital SLR. I’ve always been very anal about quality, and using a point-and-shoot digital camera just wouldn’t cut the cheese. Point-and-shoots are slow, limited and for the most part produce fairly crappy pictures.

A few weeks ago I finally decided to give in to my bad back’s demands and bought a Canon Powershot 610 digicam. At first I was very skeptical – I took hundreds of photos and bitched about how bad they are compared to my 5D. And then it dawned on me – I take the photos on my walks for myself, just because I enjoy it so much. These photos do not have to be perfect – they just need to document what I see. Chances are I’ll never need to make a 16x20 print from any of those files – and even if I do the content of what I photograph would be more important than the quality. That revelation settled it for me and last Friday, for the first time in years, I walked for more than 10 miles without the painful weight around my neck.

It was great. It was liberating. I loved it. Now I have that little beautiful digicam in my bag all the time. As far as I’m concerned it was the best $200 I ever spent.