It’s been a few months into the Coronavirus lockdown with international borders all but shut. The sense of wanderlust has been growing, slowly gnawing away at me as I revisit old sets whilst archiving photos from the past year.
Every time I travel, I bring the usual kit of workhorses… plus a couple of oddball items. In my last pilgrimage to Osaka (arguably the eating capital of Japan), there was space for the Lensbaby 56 in my travel camera bag. Prior to this trip, I had only used the lens for studio portraits and videography. For those in the know, outside of the staples that should be clinical (such as the Sony 24-105 G and select Leica lenses), my preference has always been character lenses.
Spurred on by the delicious irony, I continued on… enchanted by the softly glowing lights, lured by the smells of street food and the concept of sonder (n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own) in a foreign country.
How I wish I could shoot more travel and street captures in this style… especially due to this “velvet”-y effect whereby I can control the diffusion without having to carry a stack of different strength Pro-mist diffusion filters. The recent release of the wider Lensbaby Velvet 28 also seems primed (pardon the pun) for this application.
