Zippers and Zebras

Whilst I’m relieved to get to the end of the Alphabet, I’ll also miss it. Photography is a great form of mindfulness for me and something as simple as having a letter to focus on can give your mind a direction. Something to look for. A means to take more notice of your everyday surroundings.

There’s been a few people complete the challenge now and a few still working their way through. There’s no time limit. If you want to see what others have done just search the hashtag #debsisolationalphabet in Instagram. I’ve posted one photo per letter on Instagram but shared many more on my personal facebook page.

I’ve finished off with a Zebra that lives in a pot plant in the kitchen of our little two bedroom bunker in Fairfield in Melbourne where I am locked down for the pandemic with my partner and his teenage son. It’s a small kitchen with a big pot plant which seems a bit incongruous, until you remember that living without plants is like living without photography. Just not something you want to do.

24 of the 26 photos were taken in the bunker in either the lounge room or the kitchen. Most with window light, some with lamp light. None with flash as most of my gear is locked down at RMIT and I can’t get access to it. One photo (U) was taken in the driveway. And X was taken in a park as the restrictions started to lift and we were allowed out for recreation and not just exercise.

I’ve also included a self portrait of me with a zippered jacket. I’ve included my phone in the shot as I was using that to operate the camera. I think all of the photos were shot with my Fuji X-T2 but there might have been a sneaky shot with my partners Olympus camera. I’ll have to check the metadata to be sure. The Fuji is now going to get packed up and sent for repairs and a sensor clean. The LCD screen on the back isn’t working, which was a bit frustrating but not insurmountable. It got a lot easier once I got the wifi connection working and could operate the camera from the phone app, which is what I’m doing here. That made life a lot easier and a lot more fun. And I now know by heart that if I press the menu button, scroll left, down two, across one, down 6, it gets me to the wireless communication without having to look through the viewfinder to view the menu. Which is handy when the camera is on a tripod, wedged in a corner because I’m shooting with a 60mm lens on a crop sensor camera in a small space.

Now the goal is to keep keywording my files in Lightoom. Put some books together, enter some competitions and update my teaching materials ready for when Short Courses kick off again at RMIT (looking like September at this stage).

Cheerio
Deborah

PS. Special thanks to Steve and Tommy for letting me taking over the corner of the lounge room that gets the best light for the last several weeks and for being in some of the photos too.