Rob Jenkins Photography Blog

The sometimes painful journey of my photography with a sense of humor and a touch of cynicism... For those interested I shoot Fuji and love them.

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#adelaidemodel #bluetanktop #blondemodeladelaide #fujifilm #naturallightphotography #fashioninblue (at Adelaide, South Australia)

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Bride’s maid shot from recent wedding. Loved the dress, shoes and make up & hair. Seriously brides - always get great make up and hair ... it’s worth it when your photographer can capture the style of the day.

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Long tall Amy. #adelaidemodel #blackandwhitephoto #adelaidefashion #littleblackdress #fujifilm (at Adelaide, South Australia)

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Beautiful Emerald Hill Road Singapore with model friend #fujifilmxt1 #fujifilmsingapore #singapore #singaporemodel #pinkdress #singaporefashion #56mmf12 #traditionaldress #asiandress #lovesingapore #lovetravel #travelphoto #emeraldhillroadsingapore (at Singapore)

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My very first overseas trip was to amazing Singapore. Having 5 kids meant overseas travel was not affordable until recently. So we chose Singapore as we really love Asian culture and of course the food. We met amazing people including this beautiful model , Livia. This shot taken in a bar on Emerald Hill Road #emeraldhillroadsingapore #singapore #singaporemodel #asianmodel @visit_singapore #singaporefashion #asianbeauty (at Singapore)

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Adelaide. City of roadworks, silly parking fees and restrictions. #adelaide #roadworks #sa #streets_storytelling#streetphotography

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International Cosplay Day is just around the corner - don’t forget to get yourselves ready to rock.

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Different shoots - all with Fuji camera. The jpg’s it gives me are a good base to create what I see in my head when I take the shot. Sometimes I just add tones or contrast, sometimes a lot more.

Photography is freedom to create.

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I could kiss her...

Maybe you remember the Lou Reed song, New Sensations, well there’s a line about how much he loves his GPZ (motorbike) he could “kiss her” 

That’s kind of how my old Fuji XE1 is to me. I love that old thing. But there’s a reason why I love it and won’t ever sell it. Why it’s a special camera to me. You see there’s a bit of a story. One I’ve told friends and I’m not sure they understood. So maybe I’m not much of a story teller..? 

So I’ll have another go here, I’ll try and get it out. Not cause I want to get “likes” or reposts, no, it’s cause it’s been inside of me for a long while and I have to get it out right just once. Here goes...

A couple of years back my daughter, Leah went on a trip. Overseas. She’s a kid in my eyes, she was just 19 and for me to have my kid head off to Europe for that big trip kids want to do before they get too settled, well it freaked me out. I had a couple of things that gave me minimal comfort though. One was she was going with her close friend, second she did a self defence course with my instructor who’s kind of like Liam Neeson and has a “special set of skills”. He also promised her if she got stuck or needed help to call as he had friends across Europe that could help... thanks Nino, you’ll never know how much I appreciated that.

Off she went. Four months. Those four months went too slow. I spent many a night on my knees praying, begging might be more accurate. Yeah I have a strong faith, but I’m a realist and I know that God isn’t my fairy godmother granting me wishes at will. I’d unfortunately watched some movies like Taken and so on and so worried the whole damn time she go missing or something crazy.

But, it was also around this time I got interested in a new camera. I’d been a Canon shooter and had no real issues or reason to change but something about that little XE1 got me thinking. I read every review, watched them on Youtube. Read them in magazines and saved my pennies. Some nights in bed, my wife asleep next to me I’d start to worry about my kid. It was almost overwhelming cause there’s nothing you can do except hope she’s ok, safe and look forward to her next message via social media. 

Well, those nights I’d pick up my iPad and read something about that damn camera, just to distract me. Over time I fell in love with that little camera and I didn’t even own it yet. It was the anticipation of getting it that kept my mind off worrying about Leah. I’d read about the way it was fun to use, the amazing jpg files, the retro look, the dials... yeah it looked like fun. So I waited until I had enough money and kept reading to distract me from being a worrying dad. 

Then the day came. I got my Fuji XE1, and yeah, I love it so much I could kiss her... 

Taken with my newer XE2 and in my cupboard is also an XT1... I love those Fuji cameras so much I could kiss ‘em.

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Why I love the Fuji XE2 just a bit more...

A bit more then what? Grilled cheese? Fish and chips? A hot bath on a cold day? Well yeah sure but I love it a bit more then my XT1.

I love the way it feels to use.

I love the picture files, yes I know it’s got the same basic insides as the XT1…

I love how it looks.

I love its range finder style, yes it’s not a range finder but you get my meaning.

I love that if I’m walking the street and doing some shooting, no one pays attention to me. I also love how Fuji offer updates to the firmware and improve all their cameras, I guess they really like their customers.

It’s light and easy to use. It’s a brilliant camera for anyone to learn on cause you see how your settings affect your image. Lots of mirrorless cameras do that and it really can help you craft your shot.

Yeah I love my XT1 too, but that’s my workhorse and studio camera, the XE2 is the one I reach for when I’m out having fun.

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Why I love the Fuji XE2 just a bit more then the XT1

A bit more then what? Grilled cheese? Fish and chips? A hot bath on a cold day? Well yeah sure but I love it a bit more then my XT1.

I love the way it feels to use.

I love the picture files, yes I know it’s got the same basic insides as the XT1…

I love how it looks.

I love its range finder style, yes it’s not a range finder but you get my meaning.

I love that if I’m walking the street and doing some shooting, no one pays attention to me. I also love how Fuji offer updates to the firmware and improve all their cameras, I guess they really like their customers.

It’s light and easy to use. It’s a brilliant camera for anyone to learn on cause you see how your settings affect your image. Lots of mirrorless cameras do that and it really can help you craft your shot.

Yeah I love my XT1 too, but that’s my workhorse and studio camera, the XE2 is the one I reach for when I’m out having fun.

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Remember the time you wanted to throw your camera into the ocean?

Or maybe under a passing truck..? I do. It’s normally after you finish doing a shoot and you sit there thinking that you just wasted a couple of hours shooting and all your pictures suck. You kind of wished you’d left your lens cap on cause you’d have got better photos. Then you do this - you think, well I can fix it in Photoshop. So you head on over to 500 PX and hope to get inspired. But instead you see all those really cool photos and decide you’ll maybe throw your gear under a truck with you attached to it. Right?

I’m sure we all have those days. I’m sure we all think we suck and then you realize that some poor sap sucks more then you do but it doesn’t make you feel better. No, you instead think about asking the poor sap to join your stamp collecting club your gonna now start up, cause you get to thinking you’re about as creative as a card board box.

Here’s a quick tip:

Don’t ditch your gear. Don’t jump off a bridge or sit quietly crying in the corner. No… just put it all away for a few hours or a day or two and remember one thing

Everyone who’s ever picked up a camera and got good at it has had similar thoughts.

That’s part of the creative journey - Oh by the way, I really hate that word - CREATIVE. 

It’s like a statement. I’m a creative. I worked with some creative. Many are nice people. Some were egotistical peanuts. So impressed with the title on their business card that they lived by the word CREATIVE. Still that’s for another day.

Back to photography. When you think you suck - that’s good. You know why? Because it means you’ve learn’t something valuable. You have understood you need to grow. Remember when you were a teen and you had growing pains. I’m no doc but I think it’s your body stretching in length or something … anyway when you are miserable about a shoot - that’s kind of like growing pains. You’re photography is crying out to get better but the rest of you needs to catch up. To stretch and grow. 

So instead of feeling bad, try to pinpoint one or two things you know you need to improve on and work your ass off getting better at them.

Can’t work out what needs improving? Get a mentor or someone who you trust to give you some advice but beware… critiques can hurt even more then growing pains. If you ask what needs to be improved, some folks will tell you in term that are so brutally honest you’ll struggle to sit down for a while cause you’re butt hurts from being kicked in it.

So try to get through the growing pains, don’t ditch your gear and have another go.

God bless.

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This is Leah from our recent shoot “Learn To Fly”  at Aldinga airdrome

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This was taken in Melbourne Australia, if I remember correctly - Easter time 2015. We’d decided to visit for a few days holiday. You can do that in Australia, like just about anywhere I guess. Jump on a plane and in an hour you’re in another major city. I was walking around with my old faithful Fujifilm XE-1 with the 18-55 zoom. The old XE-1 isn’t the fastest focusing camera in the world,  but it’s a great walk around camera and, for me, it holds a bit of sentimental value. So even though I’d upgraded to the XT-1 by this stage I prefer taking the range finder styled camera out for walks. This was the Thursday before Easter. We had decided to set off for a walk.

This young guy had just dropped his board down from carrying it so he could take off up the hill. I noticed him getting read so brought the Fuji up to my hoping and in the back of my head hoped I’d get the focus right.

He took off and I did a bit of a pan to try and capture him - panning isn’t my strong area.

It’s not the best photo I’ve taken but I still like it cause it was with the old camera I love. Interestingly on the Saturday we were walking around the city and we dropped into a camera store - Digidirect and the helpful sales guy “convinced” me to get the XE-2... plus he threw in an 18 mm lens cheap. The whole package was less then just the camera at many other stores so I couldn’t resist. Now that XE-2 is my walk around camera and yep, I love it too.

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(via Interview with Mr. Takashi Ueno from FUJIFILM Tokyo - "Why don’t FUJIFILM make full frame DSLR?")

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Some Days

Dreamy, James Taylor-esque acoustic guitar musing on the impermanence of life.

Some Days you just want to sell all your photo gear. You look at your gear and what you created and the black dog of depression suddenly appears and you’re wondering why you bought all that stuff...

But those days pass. You shouldn’t let the dog hang around too much. Don’t feed him cause he’ll be round regularly.

What fixes it? Well lot’s of things can help. But sometimes time itself is the best healer.

Planning something new and fresh that gets your heart beating just a little bit faster can help too. The Tuesday blues will go and you’ll be on the downhill ride to freedom.

So don’t give up. Instead give thanks for small things. Some people would give anything to be able to take their camera into the city, sit down with a coffee or cool drink and relax and enjoy the moment.

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