After years (decades?) of being looked down on as the poor relation of camera lenses Sigma's latest 'Art' series are now revered as something special by the pixel peepers for whom sharpness is all. I had to chuckle when I posted the pic below on a camera thread and someone commented on how much detail the lens had retained despite the crop. He'd read some of the exit data on Flickr and spoted the focal length, then asked if it was the f1.4 Art lens.
Alas it wasn't. It wasn't even Nikon's latest f1.8 (rated not far behind the Sigma for sharpityness), merely the old, much maligned for its lack of sharpityness, f2 version. I tried not to gloat too much... Just goes to show that most lenses are good enough for most purposes most of the time. And most people can't really tell the difference by looking at real world pictures.
It seems like a week ago but it was only Wednesday I had a run out in the sunshine. Sun that was coming and going as clouds blow over. Driving up the Ribble valley I was sure there was a picture to be had from the side of the road. One that showed the transition of winter to spring. Light snow remaining on the top of Pendle Hill, lambs in the fields, bare trees lit by the sun hinting at new buds. But my lack of patience prevented me waiting for the light to be right.
Even when I got bored waiting for the light and added some foreground interest I was too idle to frame the shot quite right. The sign should be slightly further to the left so as not to intersect with the slope of the hill and to put the curve of the stream banks more to the right. There was a good picture to be made with the light and dark, but I couldn't be bothered. Probably because I wasn't all that interested in the subject. If I was doing a project on the valley it might have been different, but landscapes pictures for the sake of it seem more like exercises in composition than serious picture making. They don't have much of a message unless they are really, really well considered.
Someone posted a comment on my YouTube slide show of old pictures from Southport to the effect that I'm the kind of miserable git who likes showing the bad side of things. Guilty as charged, m'lud. Showing the sunny side, the public face, is boring.That's what everyone wants to show. It also denies the fact that there is another side to things. But good or bad, it's all just stuff.
And the town isn't exactly thriving. There are empty shops, charity shops, endless coffee shops. Yet the council are continuously pestered by local business groups with grandiose plans to regenerate the place - in order to line their own pockets. None of which will make a jot of difference. The sandy beach is turning to salt marsh. The town is out on a limb with no easy road route in from anywhere except Liverpool. There's no proper centre to the town. And the parking charges are extortionate.
It's the seaside town they ought to close down! But I like it. Because it's a mix of scruffiness and almost presentableness, increasingly peopled by immigrants and the aged.
That's what my Sandgrounding blog is all about. If I'm being pretentious it's social documentary. A mish-mash of snaps that seen as a whole paint a picture of the town that's the opposite of a tourist brochure. Showing the bad side of things? Someone has to do it. It's certainly something I'm more comfortable doing than taking pretty pictures of rolling hills and gambolling lambs!
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