Bored by your Photos? Try 40mm | Ricoh GRIIIX

Do all of your photos look the same? 

Similar subjects, same angle, wide open, every time? 

Orange and teal, black and white, the same edit and presets, time and again? 

If this supposed to be fun, then why do I feel so bored?  

At first glance, you would think the Ricoh GRIIIX is the perfect travel camera.  A 24 megapixel APS-C sensor, paired with a fixed 40mm equivalent f/2.8 lens, stabilised through IBIS, clicky dials, wheels, ultra quiet leaf shutter, built-in storage and ND filter, all in a truly pocketable size.  Under-rated film simulations and in-camera processing for straight out of camera jpegs.

Over the past year I’ve used the GRIIIX specifically for travel photography, but over time I realised this isn’t the Ricoh’s primary purpose. 

The reason this camera exists, is to take boring photos.

40mm is the most natural of focal lengths, and results in comfortable, easy going images.  40 is both mathematically and pragmatically closer to 35 than 50.  You get a wider canvas than a 50 to paint each frame but strips away a layer of extraneous information compared to 35. A bit more intentionality and emphasis on the subject.   The perfect goldilocks in-between focal length that matches our eyes’ normal field of view.  

But to a lot of people, normal is synonymous with boring, uninspired even.  But boredom is just a symptom, not the root cause of our creative roadblock. You need to focus on what your boredom is actually telling you.

How are we supposed to know what we’re doing as photographers?   The boredom you feel is a clue that you’ve outgrown your past creative self, but our creative ego is writing cheques that our skills can’t cash… yet.

We need a plan to improve our skills and that comes in the form of KAIZEN. The Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement over time, small incremental changes that will accumulate into something bigger, better than the sum of its parts.  Each photo we take one is a chance to reflect on the last frame in an attempt to just get a little bit better.  This process is simpler if we keep our tools the same over time, to observe the compounding effect of Kaizen on our skills alone, not the gear. 

We don’t get to that place without shooting as much as possible as often as possible and the fixed 40mm field of view in a camera like the GRIIIX means you can always have a camera on you to hone your craft. 

Nothing beats the excitement of bright lights night after night, but tying my creative identity to travel is a risky proposition. 

As soon as I come home, the grind of the daily commute, roadworks, construction, bad weather… will all conspire to deplete the well of inspiration.  Everything looks boring in our hometown, to us at least, and it was months before I took the camera out of the drawer again.  At this point, being bored with my work is no longer the biggest threat to creative output. 

I simply didn’t care any more, and stopped shooting altogether.

I’ve been into photography just over a decade ago, and the longest I went without shooting was last year for 6 months? There was always an overwhelming amount of work to do, I had no travel plans to look forward to, and I was sick of the same old routine.

Everything was always under construction, and the ugly glow of orange cones and fumes of asphalt consumed my city.  What was the point of taking photos when it was all so temporary? 

Just like me, my city was experiencing Kaizen. As each crane came down - my old shooting patterns - shadows, silhouettes, geometry, leading lines - worked a little different than before.  

Shooting with the GRiiiX on my daily commute forced me to better, bit by bit, because the city was getting better.  Growth doesn’t need to be a home-run, we just need to be a tiny bit better than we were yesterday.

We are the product of our work, not the other way around.

If you’re bored with your photos, know that it’s a symptom of the compounding effect of Kaizen, a temporary bump in the road on your path towards creative fulfilment.  We’ll all be on this path for a long time yet, and having the right everyday carry can make the trip much more seamless.

In the next post let’s take a deep dive into the blackhole that is camera bags and accessories.

Happy shooting everyone, talk soon.

Jack.

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