John Enman
My last two articles were about my photo adventure along the Fraser River, so I hope I am not boring readers by writing about another trip I took to the British Columbia coast, this time to Richmond.
This year there were two almost back-to-back used camera sales in B.C. The first was in Vancouver and the second was in Richmond, so this past weekend saw my friend Drew and I making the trip over the Coquihalla to attend the Richmond sale. The event was, as always, lots of fun, checking out the many kinds of used cameras and talking with other photographers.
After all that fun I made a right turn as I drove out of the parking lot, instead of the left that took us to our hote, for a short drive down to Dyke Road: a slow, scenic, meandering route along the Fraser River to Steveston’s Fisherman’s Wharf.
I had my little Fuji camera with me and I wanted to walk around the marina to photograph boats. There are always lots of boats moored along the dock. To the right as one walks out on the wharf there will be fishing boats, and to the left there will be all kinds of pleasure craft.
Steveston’s waterfront is a photographer’s playland. There’s always so much to point a camera at. There are lots of people for street photographers, there are seagulls for bird photographers, the wharf and its wooden walkway is so photogenic, there are very old buildings from Steveston’s past and, of course, there are big boats in the water.
I am not, and never have been, a sailor, and have only been on a sailboat in the ocean a couple times. When I lived in Los Angeles back in the 1970s I would go to the city centre to a place called MacArthur Park, to watch people floating their toy sailboats in the pond. (I am sure there are some older readers who remember the song “MacArthur Park” sung by Donna Summers. Yes, it’s that park from the song.)
I prefer keeping both feet on firm ground. Nevertheless, I really like to photograph boats, especially ocean-going fishing boats and sailboats.
We drove along the river, stopping once to watch a fisherman catch a (maybe four-foot) sturgeon, before parking in Steveston, where I grabbed my camera and quickly walked out to the boats. My friend Drew has a neat old DSLR Canon 5D with several lens adaptors, and is always finding vintage lenses to try out.
I don’t know what he was using, but I do know that he doesn’t have my “need” to photograph all sorts of things, or my interest in boats. Every now and then I’d look around to see where he was, but I was on the go and there was so much to photograph. I was having a great time rushing from location to location, and he has known me for over 40 years and lets me do my thing.
The last time I was in Steveston I was using my DSLR, but this time I had my little Fuji. That Fuji isn’t a full frame and doesn’t have the quality of the DSLR, but it’s a perfect compact little camera for quick trips. I still have my tiny mirror-less Nikon V1, and for a while I had a Panasonic G1 mirror-less, but the Fuji Xt1 is a fun camera and I like it better.
I just got a little Olympus mirror-less on consignment at my store and I plan on giving it a test run. I do enjoy these little mirror-less cameras. It’s nice to have a high-quality camera that fits in a small bag that can be left in my car for these kind of quick excursions. Its always fun to photograph a different environment, and we photographers see and experience so much through our camera’s rangefinder.
Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.
