Photography reflections after my holiday 📷

29 Jul, 2025

Holidays are always great to discover something new, go somewhere, recharge your batteries, experiment,... Besides all that, holidays, when we're away, are also when I think of and practice photography a lot.

When we leave the door, my X100VI is in my old and worn-out Wandrd fanny pack, which I keep close to me, and when we arrive at the location for the day, I take my camera out immediately. And strangely, it feels so good to have it close to me and to walk around with it, either in hand or via the strap around my neck. Whenever we come to a spot that speaks to me, or when I feel something, I pause, look around, and focus on the shot, setting the right exposure and mood. Perhaps to the annoyance of my family, seeing me yet again lagging behind.

As I feel I'm more into photography than I ever was, I've been reflecting on what I need or what would make my shooting or experience better. I already learned a lot via Rethinking my photography needs through an "X Half" experiment 📷, so if anything, some thoughts from now are reinforcing my observations and needs back then.

I don't really need RAW

For 20 years, I've been shooting RAW. It was what we've been told to do. Truth be told, you didn't have a lot of shooting options, so you either had a dull photo or shot RAW and did edits afterwards. But so much has changed since then. Cameras have become much better in what they can capture and the output they generate. That's also why I went for Fuji years ago, because their JPEGs out of the camera looked so good.

But I never really used them. I kept relying on RAW.
While shooting and looking at the JPEGs, I came home, downloaded the RAW files and did some post-editing that way. I always feared losing something if I didn't shoot RAW.

Honestly, I'm not a professional photographer, so if the shot is not good, I'm ok with trashing it. No one will judge me or get angry. Sure, it could be a shot of the family, but in all, it wouldn't be a big deal to lose it. I take many other shots.

This holiday marked the first one where I completely switched to only jpegs as output. So I had to make sure the shot was right when shooting it.

Sure, I reviewed my shots and re-did some, but it made me more purposeful and focused on the shot, rather than shooting and correcting at home in post-processing.

Looking back now, and reviewing my shots, I'm happy with the results.
Not only did it make me enjoy photography much more, but it also made my workflow at home easier.

Disabling RAW for a complete holiday confirmed I didn't need it.

Review immediately

During a holiday, I take a lot of shots.
Running around with the family, I don't have the luxury to walk around a scene and see what's the best angle. I shoot where we're at, and if we pass a better spot, I'll take another shot.

Similarly, documenting family, I might take a shot now, and take a better one later.

All of these compounds. The longer we're away, the more shots I have.
In the past, I would not look at them until I returned home, downloaded them and started to review each one. That was very time-consuming, and the more I enjoyed the location, the more shots I took.

This holiday, I reviewed the shots I took each evening. Every day. Perhaps also since I wanted to update the home front via Polarsteps, but in doing so, I knew which shots I wanted to keep and which ones I would trash. I did not delete anything on the camera yet with the risk of corrupting the SD card, but reviewing daily, selecting shots for our travel journal and downloading them to my phone helped me tremendously when returning home for final processing.

Last week, I downloaded the shots I wanted, did some minor edits like straightening, brightness,... and afterwards published the family album.
Done!
This, in comparison with all other holidays and the countless hours I spent after returning.

People add to the scene/mood

While I do need and enjoy the company of others, I feel like an introvert.
This also manifests in my photography, where I often take the easy route of shooting scenes without people, out of my shyness or fear of being seen.

That said, this holiday I focused on documenting my family, besides the nice buildings or landscapes. And where I normally would wait for them to leave the scene or ask them to take a step aside, I often included them. Walking down the street, pointing to something, capturing their silhouette, ... Not posing, but letting them be part of or guide the scene.

I've never really tried/dared to do this before, to use and frame people in the scene, but having done so improved my shots in a way I did not see before. Of course, how you frame people in the shot matters, but if done correctly can add to the scene and mood.

This is not an easy one, especially if I'm shooting without my family, but one I'll try to focus on more often.

Adding more people in the shot to enhance it.

Having a person in this shot made it so much more interesting.

A camera still beats a phone

While you can get amazing shots via a phone as well, there is much more to the experience of doing it with a real camera.

With a phone, there is no real feel to it; you point it at the scene and push on the screen to capture the shot.

With a camera, you hold it to your eye, you look through the viewfinder, check your settings, you search for the focus area, and manage the light & exposure. It's a full process.

I've tried many phone apps, but none provide this experience and emotion.

One thing I'm also observing is that people seem to be more willing and trusting when you have a camera in their direction instead of doing it with a phone. Another argument to carry and shoot with my camera more often.

I'm still intrigued by the X half, but I'll not get one

While the X half keeps intriguing me, especially its portability and film mode, I'm not entirely sure it's for me.

I feel I still want some form of control, which I'll not be able to have with the X half. I'm very particular about the output of my shots, and with only default recipes, limited framing options, and default vertical mode, I'm not sure it can create what I need or want.

The X half is limiting for a reason, but still...

It's also not cheap, so getting one just for experimenting seems over the top. I think I'm going to let this one pass.

I still have an old Fuji XT20 with a 27mm pancake lens, and while it doesn't have all the new emulations or image quality of cameras today, I'm going to give that one a try as a daily carry-all to shoot whatever comes to view.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

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