Slow Photograph #86: MANUALLY MINDFUL, A Lens for Slow Photography

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Manually Mindful: A Lens for Slow Photography

 At sunrise in North Carolina on the eastern shore of the Atlantic coast, I go for a walk with a new lens. Red cardinals are singing from bare branches. Gulls shriek in a flock, flying over head. Spider webs on the ground are covered with dew. Pines and sweet gum support vines and creepers. Speechless, I absorb this Spring morning.  

 In photography, we have lenses that stabilize. There are lenses for lightning fast auto focus. There are lightweight lenses designed to shoot quickly and ask questions later. 

 This lens is none of these things. It is heavy. It records no aperture to the camera file. It is a soft at the edges. It is silent with no beeps.  

And while it does fit on my old film Nikon and my new digital camera, it does not auto focus. No focus indicators appear in the view finder. Focusing takes extra time. 

 The modus operandi of this optic is the opposite of all gear that is marketed today.

 Q: So, why bother with it on a modern camera?

 A: It is the closest thing to a paintbrush that I have. It is that sort of gear, like a tripod, that asks the questions in advance. It asks for concentration. It invites deliberate focusing of mind and lens. 

Shooting only JPG images with no editing, my time is devoted not to the screen, but to meandering with all automated information turned off, moving through a fully manual mindfulness.

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