Adding a new element. The Lensbaby Edge 80

Sometimes I begin to feel my work get stagnant like the shallow water in our neglected baby pool. I hesitate to get into my photography when it is like that. Inspiration drying up usually means I am neglecting that side of my life. For me, creative tasks are necessary to maintain the freshness and enjoyment of what I do. When it gets to that point, I feel like I need to dump out the right side of my brain and fill it up with something completely different.
Blast music, take a drive, draw badly, read voraciously… anything to get me writing down ideas again.

After the inspiration tide turns back, I need to look at my process. As a fan of prime lenses, often I will relax into a rut of shooting with the same focal length for months. Changing the lens on my camera can literally challenge me to see in a new way. It is amazing how these little metal tubes of glass alter my actual perspective. A telephoto lens can draw me into my subject when I need physical distance. Macro lenses help celebrate the fine details, while wide angle lenses make me feel far removed from the world right out front of me. Years of shooting with the same camera brand means I have collected a generous selection of lenses, but there are none that change my work as dramatically as the Lensbaby and their series of interchangeable optics.

The latest in that line up is the Edge 80. All the previous Lensbaby optics have either an all over softness or a sweet spot of focus with the blur radiating outward from the edge of that circle; the Edge 80 features an adjustable slice of focus. The size of that strip can be modified by the aperture ring while the placement and orientation is decided with the tilting of the lens. This is like a miniature tilt/shift for your DSLR. I have been in love with the tilt/shift effect for photographic art since discovering the work of Keith Carter in the late 1990s. His series, Holding Venus, haunts me to this day. It is that undulating blur of the tilt/shift that suggests a ripple in time or even the merging of the mortal and the transcendent.

Being present daily yet exploring the legacy of photographic memories is why I do what I do. The relationship I have with images of my father is the strongest tangible connection remaining. Photographs are not simply proof of a life lived, but a bridge to the past for our waning memories.
Like seeing the babies they once were in the children that they are now.

To me, photography is not just a business, but a lifelong study of existence.
It is life -the here and now, the all around and especially the in between- that I find endlessly fascinating.

Once I got used to positioning the focal plane, achieving this mix of the otherworldly with the ordinary was so easily done using the Lensbaby Edge 80 on my Composer Pro. I also enjoyed the process. Anytime I have to slow down and manually focus, I find my work improves. I reconnect with the practice and I begin again to think instead of doing it all by rote. Even when the subject matter is so familiar…

The really surprising thing I found about this particular Lensbaby optic, was the ability to get a super sharp portrait as well as the typical dreamy look they noted for producing. The close focus feature in conjunction with a smaller aperture resulted in gorgeous sharp eyes with focus falling off gracefully. It rivals any portrait lens I have in my kit.

I am intrigued with the versatility of this one lens. It has me thinking and shooting again for me…

Stay tuned.