That was then, and this is now – What a journey

22 years separate the two photographs of cameras in front of a mountain, although the journey really began 63 years earlier.

Sometimes I think I was born with a camera in one hand and a pencil in the other.

My first eureka moment was on top of a mountain at the age of 13 when a lightning bolt suggested if I made a series of photographs I could join them later to create the panoramic view I was seeing.

My second eureka moment was at art school the first time I looked through an SLR as opposed to a direct vision viewfinder camera.

The journey had begun.

I will not bore you with dialogue or images from the many years I have been taking photographs, but will include just a few images from the last 20 years.

I was prompted to write this after looking at my Lightroom catalogue and seeing the number of images made on Fuji cameras and also the number made on iPhones.

So, where am I going with this story? Recently I organised an exhibition which converted the digital archive I operate for my village into analogue images.

The exhibition contains over 1000 images from 22 years, shot on all formats and cameras.

One panel in the exhibition was made totally on an iPhone 14 Pro, and when holding a post-mortem on the exhibition, I was shocked and stunned how the images from the iPhone held up against the theoretically more superior and better quality images from conventional cameras, both film and digital.

On reflection, I also realise that my ‘real cameras’ are taken out less and less, and now my brain thinks mobile, even using one like a 5×4 viewing images on the screen mounted on a tripod.

Nothing will ever surpass the pleasure of an X-Pro with prime lenses, but the old saying that the best camera you have is the one you have with you ‘resonates’.

I have just acquired an iPhone 16 Pro, and I intend to stop there because it offers everything I need and more in a tiny space in my pocket.

I also have decided that X cameras will stop at the current inventory because they can do everything I need, and there are images 2 meters high in the exhibition from an old X-H1, so quality is not an issue.

I read recently on a well-known site that the writer was saying he thought the X series was dead and only suitable for content creators and that the medium format Fuji’s were a better bet. Well, each to his own, but someone once wrote painting was dead, more recently film was dead and even more recently cameras are dead and mobiles rule.

In my mind, painting, film and cameras will live alongside mobiles or whatever the next incarnation will be just as long as they are serviceable.

So, for me, my evolutionary journey in terms of equipment is at an end unless a body or lens becomes terminal.

My bi-ine is that the journey has been remarkable, exciting, and I would change nothing.

Fuji has always had a special place in my heart, from their film, through large format lenses and roll film cameras to the X series.

I feel the same about Apple, whose equipment I have used since 1986/7.

It is nice to sigh and think of future of images made from familiarity with my cameras and an insatiable thirst to make images.

I am just about to embark on a journey in search of ‘my’ new way of seeing by challenging myself by re-visiting and re-seeing old locations and ideas.

I do confess to a little bit of GAS… In 2000 I asked Hasselblad would they (Fuji) make a digital Xpan, they said yes, and it seems if rumours are correct, 2028 will see one.

Now, being at the grand old age of 75, I hope to be around to be allowed to make images with a digital Fuji panoramic camera and my trusty iPhone.

I realise Fuji medium format has an Xpan crop factory, but I hope for something as svelt as the X-Pro3.

Until then, I will crop or use the wonderful XP4N app (€.99) on my iPhones – see screen grab.

Okay, time to ‘tilt at some windmills’ with a nod to Cervantes.