Now I'm back 100% to using film, I can't help wonder sometimes if I've lost the ability to shoot quickly. With the participants of my tour of Torres, I was aware that there were shots I was not getting. Here is one example. We were at the edge of Lago Grey, shooting the surrounding, all-encompasing Paine massif one morning, and I really wasn't sure if Velvia film was really going to cut it. The light was still relatively soft, but I kept thinking 'digital would cut this no problem' whereas I only ever shoot Velvia in the very early mornings and late evenings when the light is very, very soft. So I felt frustrated.... damn, being using a digital SLR for too long and I've started to rely on the histogram too much. Plus, the Mamiya 7 sucks at telephoto support and fast lenses. I felt weighed down, I felt I wasn't going to get my shot
And then out of the blue a fuegan fox appeared on the scene and litterally walked in from the right and departed from the left of my scene. My temptation was to have a telephoto there and then to get in close to the fox, but I'm so glad I was constrained. As much as the fox is tiny, the resulting photo I feel, works well. The mountains are commanding, they are certainly a major point of interest, and perhaps without the fox, the landscape image wasn't really strong enough. Putting the fox in there, as small as he is, doesn't demand too much attention - there's no conflict between the fox and the mountains for attention. The fox is complimentary to the mountains by adding some foreground interest at the right proportions and from the foxes point of view, it's good to have a background that can be used to convey a sense of scale. Sometimes, isolation, reducing down a photo to the most interesting element (fox) is too drastic. Sometimes you need to step back and let the entire landscape in. For that reason, I'm glad I was stuck with my Mamiya 7. I had to make use of what I had, and hopefully use it well.