Daily Inspiration #359 by Rob McKay

October 4, 2012 Daily Inspiration 35

Hi Steve, awesome site!

I check your site a few times a day to see what’s going on, check news, reviews and of course the Daily Inspiration posts, I figured I would send one in.

I have been shooting mostly wildlife for years with a focus (pardon the pun) on capturing birds in flight on giant DSLR’s, mainly Nikon (my wildlife stuff is here -> http://robmckayphotography.com ), but after many years of the same old thing, I got bored with it, I mean how many shots of a snowy owl does a guy need? Between that and the fact that everywhere I went I was packing 50 pounds of gear, I decided I needed a change of pace.

I bought a 35mm analog Voigtlander and 40mm lens and starting cranking out photos, loving every minute of it! I love the range finder, the size and manual focusing; it’s a hell of a thrill nailing something in focus using my hands and eyes instead of relying solely on the latest auto-focusing equipment and 10 frames a second.

That was it, I was hooked and now needed to make a decision and I did. I unloaded ALL my heavyweights, and ended up in the Leica world by selling my 300mm f/2.8 VR to a friend and buying the M9 from another friend, now onto the lenses. 😉

I’m still hooked and have an assortment of Leica and Voigtlander glass, even an M6 is easily packed along with the M9 in a small, light shoulder bag.

I probably shoot film, including large and medium format, as much as digi nowadays and I’m still an avid fan of all types of photography, from landscapes to street and everything in-between, although birds in-flight are out of the question. I’m not jonesing for any of the new stuff, I’m happy with what I have at the moment, and that’s a nice change for me.

Attached a few recent photos.

Thanks, and again, GREAT SITE STEVE!

Rob McKay

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http://bokehenstein.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caughtintheair/

 

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35 Comments

  1. Rob im going to post two links here
    I hope you and everyone else who have posted on this thread takes them for what they are
    … inspiration.

    I feel as a creative person, one of the worst things that can happen to us
    is too much smoke up our bottoms.

    As a creative person it is so important to remain humble.
    And to realise how little we have travelled along our path,
    and that the opinions of people about our photos
    is to be taken in context

    http://www.thedphoto.com/inspiration-fix/landscape-photography-inspiration-by-frederick-concha/

    http://www.thedphoto.com/category/inspiration-fix/

  2. Lovely pics. Thoe only pic which is not my style is the caraven. But that means quite nothing: It’s just grumbling on a very high level. The others are really great.
    I shoot with Leica and the fabulous Fuji X-Pro.
    Very exciting site. It’s my first visit here.

    Best regards from Germany
    Thorsten

  3. Love the 3rd shot. it has something about it. Thanks for sharing – Ramanan

    Steve,

    I have been visiting your site for more than a year now. Thank you so much for this amazing site.

    Best wishes
    Ramanan.

  5. I love leica but the closest I can get is my 25mm Panasonic. I love the photos by the way especially the black and white.

  8. Wow, such inspiring, and captivating pictures. Thanks so much for sharing. All the best.

  14. Rob,

    Many thanks for all these refreshing “images”.

    As a wildlife lover -and also part-time photographer- I will never get bored searching, looking at and, then, shooting animals… your birds of prey’s pictures are just tremendous and I wish I can get some like this one day (I had focused on mammals for the past 20 years…).

    On the other side, I really share your toughts about travelling very light, shooting at anything that please the eye and/or feed the quest of bokeh.

    At last, thanks for all, the birds, the faces, the cars and these landscapes thousand miles away from here… It helps a lot to breath deeper and healthier.

    StM (sorry for my broken english)

  15. Really great photos. Like every one of them. It doesn’t matter what you use, you have to know how to use it.

  16. Great images Rob! Love the long exposure of the rod and reel, and the black and white treatment of the storm covered hay field is sublime. Well done, and thanks for sharing.

  19. Awesome Rob. Looks like I’ve been traveling around in your neck of the woods these past 5 weeks as we’re in the middle of a 9 week road trip with our travel trailer. Left Yellowstone a week ago after spending 2 weeks there and prior to that a week in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

    It was hilarious to me watching all these long lens shooters trying desperately to get up close to anything that moved, whether it had fur or feathers. After driving almost 600 miles inside Yellowstone I don’t know how many traffic jams these long lens fellows caused by just having their camera out on a tripod.

    Love the look of your fly rod gear and the aluminum boat. Like my wife has been saying on this trip, you’re doing it!

  20. I love the 4th and the last one!

    I visited your Flickr and I am enjoying all those landscape shots, some portraits too!

    I find it interesting too that since I dumped my Nikon D90 to get my Olympus E-P3 I am finding myself thinking mor and taking my sweet time in order to take a picture. Sometimes I feel like I miss opportunities but I rather miss some and get a good shot. This is a hobby for me anyway so I am glad I enjoy every minute of it.

    By the looks of it, you enjoy it a lot too! It is always nice, at least for me, when it is evident that the photographer enjoys it a lot and does not look at it as a mere job.

    Cheers!

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