I've been posting less lately. Part of the reason is I'm very busy. Not only is it summer, my busiest period, but due to several of my computers, monitors and storage drives showing the effects of their age and the need to upgrade I've overhauled my IT and storage options. Plus a whole series of software updates have arrived and I'm trying to assess what Windows 10, Yosemite and IOS 9 offer me. But that's not the whole story.
I got a Twitter notification this morning about a post titled 'X-T10 vs E-M5 II vs a6000: Mirrorless Shootout!' and I realised I couldn't care less. Yes I've done posts like that, but more and more I'm realising just how pointless they are. And furthermore just how pointless most of the photographic internet is. It's about gear rather than photography and brand worship rather than any kind of useful appraisal of what gear works well in terms of creating images. It's also positioning cameras and lenses in some kind of competitive environment with all kinds of confrontational language. All in all it's increasingly leaving me cold and uninterested.
I'm also currently scanning a lot of transparencies, since I have lots of interesting images stored away gathering dust and they are very saleable. My biggest earning image ever (just under £10,000) was shot on 35mm film. It was printed A3 in magazines and the size of a platform wall on the London Underground. My smartphones give me higher quality files than that, so what exactly is the point of getting obsessed by minimal differences in image quality? My best selling digital image (over 1000 sales) was shot on a 10MP camera (Pentax K10) and I have a full page tear sheet from a glossy magazine that published it A4 and it's simply stunning. So what's the point of excessive numbers of pixels? And just what do all these leisure photographers plan to do with the 40 - 50MP images they will get with some current cameras?
There is also the case that every time I go out with my current DSLR / Mirrorless cameras, I soon end up with them back in the bag and one of my phones comes out. When that happens I actually start enjoying myself and for whatever reason, I seem to create more interesting images, at least as far as I'm concerned.
The consequence of all this is I have lots of posts I don't seem inclined to finish. In many cases I'm simply repeating myself and writing about gear rather than what I really enjoy, creating images. And that has to change.
UPDATE
As is often the case, just writing about things often sorts them out. After having a bit of a whinge I've managed to get several articles finished and published.