Philosophy and Photography – The Rusty Ruin Journal

Manual Mode or Die! ~ the race to prove oneself

February 3, 2026Posted in Philosophy and Photography, PhotographyTagged culture, Photography, psychology2 Comments

If you hang around in online photography forums, especially where beginners flock, you’ll come across people who proclaim that the best and only way to really learn photography is to set the camera dial to Manual Mode and endure the suffering until it makes sense. I think this is one of the worst pieces of advice that anyone can give to a beginning photographer!

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Manual mode is somehow inferior. Of course it’s not. Some people might even learn well by pushing through the disappointment of fumbling with sweaty command dials whilst missing photographic opportunities. It’s just one way of learning and everyone learns differently.

*Through the busted window I see – Nikon D200*

In fact, I heartily recommend Manual mode and night photography to any beginner who wants to learn all about the role of light in photography and how it can be controlled through shutter speed. What I object to is the stubborn declaration by some photographers that Manual mode is the Holy Grail and will enlighten even the most confused beginner. Let me tell you, setting that dial to M is more likely going to frustrate an eager beginner and turn them sour.

Learning about the exposure triangle – how Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO interact to control light – is essential to the journey. But it’s not a mad race to the finish line. Rather than stopping stubbornly at M and staying there, set the camera to Aperture or Shutter Priority mode and take the gentler path. There’s no shame in using any of these modes. Set it to Program mode, even, and concentrate on developing the eye and the imagination and living in the moment. There’s NO rule that states a photographer must use Manual mode all the time, every time. Cameras are tools that provide options and we use the best tool for the job to produce a result.

Photography is about more than gear. It’s about more than the money you spend. It’s about more than how sharp a lens is or how proficient you are at reading a light meter – and lets face it, insecure ego-driven types who are stuck in M are likely still glued to their camera’s inbuilt light meter anyway – even old film professionals use a light meter as a starting point.

The truth is that lots of mediocre photographs are made in all camera modes. There are people obsessed with sharpness and eradicating all digital noise, but seem to forget that an interesting composition is key. There are also people who are justifying the thousands spent on gear, hoping that the next pro camera body will make them a better photographer. Let me tell you something: if you make mediocre photos on a 16 megapixel camera, that 45 megapixel camera on the shop shelf isn’t going to suddenly make you better. Getting better is not just about becoming technically comfortable. It’s also about learning to see the world differently.

Pocketable plastic fun and the Nikon D200 ~ a day on the coast with two cameras

January 18, 2026January 18, 2026Posted in Other Thoughts and Reflections, Philosophy and Photography, Photography, TechnologyTagged abandoned, Charmera, culture, Kodak, Nikon, Nikon D200, philosophy, PhotographyLeave a comment

The Nikon D200 and the Kodak Charmera – two very different cameras on the surface. The D200 is built like a magnesium-alloy tank and the Kodak Charmera is a tiny plastic toy. There’s no comparison when talking about image quality, of course, yet I continue to return to the fact that we can freeze time through the use of these devices, whatever their technical limitations.

The act of making a photo has become so culturally habitual – so intertwined with commerce and self-promotion – that the initial magic has long since been lost. We’re a long way from the very first photo made ~ “View from the window at Le Gras”.

It’s strange to think the toy Kodak’s 1.6 megapixels features vastly more resolution than the very first photo made using a camera obscura over an 8 hour exposure time. Marked in technological milestones, human lives seem small. Our lives seem smaller still when we pick up to examine even the dullest stone that lies at the foot of a worn hill that was once a mountain.

In colour, the photo above is washed out and the highlights burned beyond editing. In black and white, the photo becomes a small study in shape, direction, pattern, and shadow, with a high-key aesthetic. It was a single moment seized as we ordered food.

*Exploring the wreckage – Kodak Charmera*

We chanced upon a burned out ruin. I walked around fallen red brick and charred wall cladding, immersing myself in light and shadow.

*Ghosts in broken rooms – Kodak Charmera*

*Nails and holes in the wall – Kodak Charmera*

I couldn’t forget the Nikon D200 in my camera bag. It pulled on my left shoulder as it reminded me that it’s services were available – every bit the prosumer DSLR of 2005 and seemingly so distant from that first photograph in the early 19th century.

One might wonder if there exists a linear technological line between cave art on rough walls and the recording of the world to modern digital storage media? It’s hard to imagine a world without the technology to record ourselves and the world, yet we’ve always sought a type of crude immortality through the things we leave behind – whether recorded on cave walls 60 thousand years ago or posted online. We try to leave a mark before we leave.

Rarely do I have the opportunity to get so close to a ruin like this. Walking over the rubble, the soles of my sneakers adjusting to the sharp edges and angles of detritus, I reflected on the passage of time.

*Ghosts in slivers of light – Nikon D200*

It’s all about the vibe ~ why use old digital cameras?

January 13, 2026January 14, 2026Posted in Consumer Culture, Other Thoughts and Reflections, Philosophy and Photography, PhotographyTagged 1, culture, digicam, digital camera, philosophy, Photography, psychology, Vintage digital14 Comments

If you’d told me 15 years ago that my 1 megapixel Kodak would become a vintage digicam fetish item for Gen Z, I might have been amused. At the time, I was looking for tech-upgrades I could afford. It was all about more megapixels, as that seemed to be the measure of a digital camera in the 2000s – a time when companies other than Nikon, Sony, and Canon thought they had a chance to revive their fortunes after the film era.

I might not be Gen Z, but it’s nice to use these old cameras again. Exploring macro modes, slow start-up times accompanied by bell chimes, and outdated storage media reminds me of how exciting the digital camera market was back then. Even a company like Casio – largely known for calculators and watches – was dipping their toes into a market that was fresh and ripe for innovation.

*Soft shadows on wood #1 – Olympus C-770*

For those of us who lived through it, this particular past doesn’t hold the mythical gold that Gen Z thinks it does, but it’s also perfectly natural to yearn for brighter yesterdays, especially when today is so obsessed with both the perfection of the image and the kind of moral purity testing that accompanies a technology layer that weaves relentlessly through our lives, recording our thoughts and feelings so that we’re not allowed to ever forget or forgive.

Despite the nostalgia, there are other benefits to reviving old digital cameras:

Save the environment by not chucking out a perfectly usable old camera. Companies tapping viciously into the dopamine hits that reliably ensure we hit the technology upgrade treadmill and spend spend spend don’t help our planet.
Use limits to learn – it might only have a maximum ISO of 400, no image stabilisation, and a sensor that goes blind as soon as a sliver of a highlight hits the photosites, but those old camera limits will teach you patience. They’ll teach you to consider dynamic range. They’ll teach you to slow down and compose each frame properly because the camera doesn’t have the same easy conveniences our modern cameras do.
An old digital camera will also teach you that photography is about more than expensive camera gear. I’ve said it before – people have been making wonderful photos for more than a century. Great photos are not restricted to the 21st century and camera gear that makes your bank account weep. If you’re not making good photos with a cheap camera, you’re not going to make good photos with a $6000 camera.

*Demolition of the old church – Nikon D200*

Discovering quiet corners ~ the transient and the imperfect

January 2, 2026Posted in Philosophy and Photography, Photography, Toy CamerasTagged Charmera, Contemplative Photography, Kodak, Olympus, Photography, toy cameraLeave a comment

Feeling sentimental, I recently took the newly revived Olympus C-725 to a local marina on New Year’s Eve. It was a lovely night with friends and family. I also packed the Kodak Charmera of course, having been my 30 gram pocket companion since Christmas. Since the ageing 16 megabyte XD card in the Olympus only holds a maximum of 21 photos at the High Quality setting – a storage concern sure to vex many modern digital camera users – I reached for the Charmera once I received the dreaded Olympus Card is Full message in bright orange text.

*Stacked for the evening – Kodak Charmera*

Encouraging a playful mindset, the Charmera encourages photos that are both ordinary and atypical. Divorced from the need to create a worthy image with a worthy camera, there are no gorgeous sunsets or beautiful portraits. There are instead worn chairs stacked against a blue wall and orange chairs stacked atop a weathered table. Beauty in the ordinary – liberated from the gear – Kodak wabi-sabi – the appreciation of the imperfect and the impermanent.

*Orange chairs chained to a wooden table*

The glow of angled orange plastic at sunset, set against the wood and brick, with a hint of blue wall – an ordinary scene recorded by a distinctly ordinary toy camera.

The size of the camera doesn’t matter. The quality of the digital sensor is just another tool to be used wisely. What matters is the encouragment of the eye and the imagination in the moment.

A day in the city with the Kodak Charmera ~ dark laneways, bricks, and fluffy toys

December 30, 2025December 31, 2025Posted in Photography, Philosophy and Photography, Toy CamerasTagged Charmera, culture, Kodak, philosophy, Photography, psychology, toy camera2 Comments

I can’t get enough of this toy camera right now. There’s creative freedom in making photos of things I might not notice when using a more serious camera. Maybe I’ve developed a touch of snobbishness when using a Nikon or a Sony or an Olympus, as though only select scenes are worthy of the effort to pull pricier cameras from my shoulder bag.

Toy cameras, very far from the realms of technical perfection, allow a broader and more playful view of the world. They turn ordinary scenes into immersive moments: “That reflection in the window really is interesting and worthy of my time and attention!”. In this way, the eye is developed – the imagination fired – and the less serious camera becomes a tool that leads to the present moment playfully and without internal pressure and the solemn rituals surrounding serious gear.

*Mounds of cheerful cheap fluff – Kodak Charmera*

Once again, I’m experimenting with my custom Exposure X7 colour preset to add some film grain, enhance the washed out colours, and blur textures and digital sharpness.

Admittedly, geometric arrangements like this always catch my eye, toy camera in hand or not. Dirty laneways in the city, home to rubbish bins, brown puddles, and the ugly backdoors of mall-way businesses that prefer to present a prettier face to the public, are ripe for wandeing on cloudy days with a camera ready.

I think sometimes we’ve forgotten just how amazing it is that we can record a unique slice of time. Maybe our image-obsessed and image-saturated culture has turned precious moments into tired throwaway pixels to be shared on social media – cheaply tossed atop the digital mountain for endless scrolling and potentially harmful social comparison.

*Fishing spiders and rubbish bins – Kodak Charmera*

Lo-fi photos and simulated film grain ~ more from the Kodak Charmera

December 28, 2025December 31, 2025Posted in Philosophy and Photography, Photography, Toy CamerasTagged Charmera, culture, Kodak, philosophy, Photography1 Comment

In my continued quest to find beauty in the photos made by toy cameras, I’ve come to broaden my views on what makes for an interesting photo. Growing up with cheap 35mm film cameras, disposable plastic boxes from Kodak and Fujifilm, 110 cameras, and APS cameras, I was never about technical perfection because I couldn’t afford the gear anyway.

Chasing megapixels is a fool’s adventure powered by marketing departments. One of my favourite film cameras back then was a Fujifilm APS camera – low on image quality, but high on ease of use and fun. Before that, my father’s old motor-drive 35mm Chinon, originally purchased in Singapore, beloved by him, and eventually passed to me.

*Bricks and concrete in the morning sun – Kodak Chamera with added film grain*

It must have been truly magical to see images appear on film plates more than a century ago. Now, image recording is a daily routine ~ surveillance cameras all around, smartphones, digital keychain cameras that fit in pockets, AI that can generate talking flying pig animations, social media platforms saturated by snaps of the junk of day-to-day life, the latest and greatest from Sony. Image-making is so commonplace, we hardly notice the magic of being able to freeze time inside a frame.

*Shadow ladder – with film grain added in Exposure X7*

Of course, a good photo is about more than technical perfection and the money spent on gear ~ light and shadow, shape and angle, an interesting subject, framing and composition, emotion and vibe, story-telling ~ all of these elements can be communicated through even the cheapest of cameras.

Exploring four mountain landscapes ~ thoughts on aesthetic choices and gear limits

August 18, 2025August 20, 2025Posted in Aesthetics and Technique, Philosophy and Photography, PhotographyTagged 1, 2, 3, 4, Nikon, Nikon D3400, philosophy, Photography9 Comments

In my previous post, I touched on the idea that gear limitations can have an impact on subject matter and aesthetic choices. Rather than work against the glass, it’s personally more rewarding to adapt to limits and consider other ways to make interesting photos. In this context, limits drive creative growth and learning.

As there was an abundance of wondrous mountains draped in heavy clouds, I made a decision to focus on the scale, shape, colour, and tonality of the landscape rather than the sharpest details. Knowing the optical limits of my telephoto lens changed my perspective.

*Mountain landcape #1 – Nikon D3400 and Nikkor 200mm DX VR lens*

Distant landscapes are often hazy, and the details are difficult to record. Conditions were also overcast and regularly dull, further encouraging me to adapt and make deliberate aesthetic choices.

My objective in this mountain series was to simply focus on framing form, shape, scale, and tone. Having a rough final image in mind, I made photographs that provided me the raw material for editing post-holiday.

*Mountain landcape #2 – Nikon D3400 and Nikkor 200mm DX VR lens*

I set the White Balance to Fluorescent in Lightroom to make everything cold and slightly mysterious, emphasising the cloudy conditions. The 16:9 ratio crop choice also amplifies the scale of the mountains and encourages the viewer’s eye to travel their length, taking in tone, layering, and form.

During initial composition for the above photo, I deliberately framed it so the three visible mountain layers travelled to the right edge of the frame and terminated together. This provides visual interest, harmonises with the bulky layering at the leftmost edge of the frame, and serves as both entry and exit point for the viewer’s eye.

*Mountain landcape #3 – Nikon D3400 and Nikkor 200mm DX VR lens*

In the photo above, you can just make out tiny white buildings at the bottom right of the frame, They sit at the foot of the mountains and look small, thus providing a sense of scale. I also like the dapples of sunlight near them, made muddy and indistinct by the Fluorescent White Balance choice.

*Mountain landcape #4 – Nikon D3400 and Nikkor 200mm DX VR lens*

Blue mountains, orange clouds ~ two photo themes informed by limitations

August 17, 2025August 18, 2025Posted in Aesthetics and Technique, Gear Talk, Philosophy and Photography, PhotographyTagged Nikon, Nikon D3400, Photography, Vintage digital2 Comments

When deciding what camera gear to pack for a long holiday on the road, it’s true that I’ve never quite packed right. One can’t be prepared for all occasions and there’s always the thought in my mind that I need to pack light, lest I strain a muscle or two. As it turns out, I could have packed the optically superior 70-300mm Nikkor ED VR lens over the Nikkor 200mm DX VR. I should know by now that when deciding between packing light or packing heavier, but optically better, lenses, I should prioritise the better glass, even if it means a sore shoulder at the end of the day.

It’s not that the Nikkor 200mm is a terrible lens, it’s just old and performs better on older Nikon bodies that don’t demand so much resolving power from lenses. Even though the Nikon D3400 is a lightweight consumer-grade camera, Nikon still managed to squeeze in a top class crop sensor.

So, what to do when I need the extra reach that an optically questionable telephoto lens gives me, but it’s going to produce soft photos with lower contrast? This is where the available gear informs thought, idea, behaviour, and photographic practice. Optically inferior lenses are useful in their way ~ the shape and tonality of distant mountains shrouded in haze and evening mist – the colour of enormous clouds at sunrise. Even old glass is capable of good photos when limits are understood. If sharp detail isn’t possible, colour, tone, and shape may present as important themes, as in this case.

*Mountains of blue, Townsville QLD – Nikon D3400 and Nikkor 200mm DX VR lens*

*Long morning clouds near the Gulf of Carpentaria, QLD – Nikon D3400 and Nikkor 200mm DX lens*

The quiet walls speak of soft light and secret corners

August 13, 2025August 14, 2025Posted in Aesthetics and Technique, Philosophy and Photography, PhotographyTagged Contemplative Photography, minimalism, Nikon, Nikon Z5, PhotographyLeave a comment

When the body is tired and sleep is needed – when the grey clouds amass and the wind blows – when the camera feels heavy and the ideas diminish – what to do? I stared into the corners of our sky-high holiday apartment and found inspiration in the artificial light. Thus, a mini-series of photographs presented themselves: quiet walls on quiet days.

Where home used to be ~ rushing to photograph a sunset and bearing the weight of expectation

June 22, 2025July 29, 2025Posted in Philosophy and Photography, PhotographyTagged Contemplative Photography, digital camera, Nikon, Photography, psychology2 Comments

Rushing into the evening with a friend, the sun quickly setting and the rain threatening, I didn’t expect much. Perhaps that was part of the problem: bearing the burden of noisy expectation rather than cultivating a mind in synchrony with the quiet moments.

Defying prediction, the heavy clouds produced some amazing sunset colours. Having located the ruins of a house on a dirt road rarely used, we both scurried over and around twisted tin, old pipes, dark trees, sharp wood, and cracked wall sheeting.

*The old chimney left standing – Nikon Z5 and Nikkor 40mm F2 lens*

I dug around in my camera bag, fumbled with settings, attempted different angles, and yet I felt frustrated and rudderless. It was as though I felt both the heaviness of the fading light and the possibility of being confronted by an angry local. My movements felt too rehearsed and tired, my eye seemed jaded and stale – following the same movements and tracing the same lines it had done ten thousand times before. Perhaps there was nothing new in this scene? Nothing fresh enough?

*The Old Hills Hoist – Nikon Z5 and Nikkor 40mm F2 lens*

Having extra time to contemplate the scene and determine the best framing isn’t always possible when you take a last-minute opportunity to dash into the eventide glow. Sometimes, you’re not in the mood for making photos. Sometimes, you’re in the mood to watch the sun move quietly and the light turn to blue shadows without the camera at all.

Despite the weight of my expectations, or perhaps because of it, there’s an apocalyptic feel to the photos. As the world teeters on the brink of another war, it seems that the right scene found me at just the right moment with my camera, in synchrony with the world.