The 11th of November 2014 marked the arrival of our little boy, Gareth. His journey with us had been a joy and the photos are dedicated to my wife Audrey who carried him for 39 weeks and bravely went through 8 hours of labour without epidural, to Gareth for adding the magical touch to my life at 35 years of age and to all the family and friends who showered us with love.
For me, life’s magical moments are to be captured as a journey and as my parents granted me the freedom to write my own legacy of life, Gareth will too write his own when he comes of age. For now, the journey leading to his arrival to this world and growing years, I chose to capture it with the Fujifilm X-E2 and XF 23mm f/1.4 R even though I had two Nikon full frame bodies in the guise of a D800 and D4 with the f/2.8 trinity lenses. As a father of a new born and growing child, I’ll be honest to say that I won’t expect myself to be handling a photography rig weighing in excess of 2kg that takes two hands to execute. But in contrast to popular believes that one has to give up photography or resort to camera phones in capturing the growing years of a child as a good camera system would be too much to manage simultaneously when outdoors, I believe that with the right camera system and lens that can provide the right chemistry of manageable size, fun & functionality, reliability and quality, photographing them would both capture this once in a lifetime memorable journey and continue to have fun doing so. After all, a child grows up only once in their lifetime and once its over, we can only relive these joyous moments in our memory and the photos we took. This is where the X-E2 and XF 23mm f/1.4 R will fit in perfectly.
In telling a story of life, to me is about telling where a person or persons are at a point of place and time. A field of view at 35mm that is neither too narrow or too wide to place the correct amount of focus on the subject(s) while telling the location would be ideal in doing so. What better else to add to this when one can control the depth of focus with a big aperture with smooth out of focus rendering. This is where the XF 23mm f/1.4 R stand out and I could not be more elated by the results as I cast into digital pixels, Audrey’s 35th week of pregnancy till Gareth’s arrival.
On the 10th of Oct, the day of our 4th wedding anniversary, we decided to celebrate Audrey’s 35th week of pregnancy with a photo shoot and some sumptuous food. All photos taken with Fujifilm X-E2 and XF 23mm f/1.4 R.
On the 11th of November, 30 mins before midnight, Gareth arrived in our hands. On the following day when he first opened his eyes to me, with indescribable joy and camera in hand, the cover photo of this blog.
As we bath in the joy of having Gareth in our life, the Fujifilm X-E2 and XF 23mm f/1.4 R provided me an easy, no frills yet fun equipment with exquisite quality to capture these moments. The photos seen here are identical to that straight out of the camera Jpeg that can be wifi onto a 3G phone and the colour is so rich with accurate white balance that no post processing is truly required. The same applies to the crisp resolution and smooth out of focus rendering of the XF 23mm f/1.4 R.
As the sleepless nights of feeding, cleaning and watching over Gareth begin, I am thankful to have Audrey as my wife and mom to Gareth, support and kind advice from friends and family and lastly, a camera that can take photos of him and share them straight out without post processing to my smart phone that would had otherwise been too exhausting.
As Baby Gareth takes his peaceful snooze which, so will Audrey and I.
Ambient Pixels 