Pushing the limit

Limitations are more of a mental obstacle than anything else, in most cases.

Roughly two years ago I abandoned my DSLR for a point and shoot camera, it actually punched way above it’s weight class out performing my DSLR. My philosophy has always been do more with less, the camera I’ve been using is a fixed lens rangefinder with pretty sharp lens that gives me a 35mm field of view. I’ve completed dozens of projects with this camera, and it wasn’t until this session that I hit the ceiling for what this camera can do in terms of performance. (Honestly, it handled very well I just needed to use different focal lengths.)

In the last half of 2021 I started working on a documentary project to highlight a select group of restaurants in downtown Bridgeport, CT. This was essentially my dream project, merging my two creative passions photography and food.

The first day of production really set the tone for me, I learned so much about my self as a documentary photographer, the biggest lesson was that I like to be in the action, and I hated missing a key storytelling moment. Given the compact nature of the camera, I needed to be physically close to every key moment, and that wasn’t always practical or possible. Roughly one hour into the session I told my partner I had to order a new camera, that I needed to be able to switch lens, this project required the use a longer focal lengths - telephoto lens.

Most of the action was happening on the line, with the chef doing his thing either on the grill or at the prep stations.

It was a really challenging moment for me to order a new camera, part of me said just make it work, but I knew I would be sacrificing so many beautiful action sequences by not having close perspective access. 

The universe made this restaurant the first location so that I would have this experience, this kitchen was large enough for me to make the photos I wanted to create, but it was cramped and bordering on unsafe. (I’m accident prone in the right environment…lol)

The camera I used for this set of photos as the Fujifilm X100F, a camera that I love dearly and still reach for daily. The restaurant highlighted in these photos is Star of Istanbul, located in downtown Bridgeport,CT.

Peace!