I walked alone with my Minolta 100mm-200mm f4.5, the kind of lens that feels like an old friend—light, unassuming, yet always ready to show me something new. The sky was a deep, unblemished blue, the kind of blue that makes you think of forgotten jazz records spinning in a quiet room. I looked up, as I often do, and there it was: an airplane slicing through the emptiness, leaving two white contrails behind, like the faint traces of a memory I couldn’t quite place. Not far off, a flock of birds circled in the high air, their wings catching the light in a way that felt almost deliberate, as if they were writing a message I’d never decipher. I stood there, the shutter clicking softly, feeling the weight of the moment settle into me—a strange, gentle happiness, like the last note of a song fading into silence.
My Sony A300, with its CCD heart, captures spring like a time traveler stuck in 2008. It doesn’t record light—it whispers it. Those greens? Not emeralds, but fresh chlorophyll still trembling on willow buds. Those pinks? Not petals, but the shyness of first blooms caught mid-sigh.
CCD sensors are digital photography’s adolescence. Their color science stutters like a teenager’s heartbeat—overexposed whites blooming into halos, shadows clinging to blue like denim jackets in March wind. Every image wears a vintage sweater, all soft edges and nostalgic noise. This isn’t imperfection; it’s the raw grammar of beginnings.
CMOS is summer’s sober adult. Precise, efficient, flexing dynamic range like sunbaked muscles. Its colors don’t blush—they declare. Where CCD stumbles into accidental poetry (a blown highlight mimicking overeager laughter), CMOS calculates every photon like a banker counting daylight.
Yet I choose to wander with my CCD relic. These spring frames pulse with what EXIF data can’t quantify—the way morning light spills through Beijing’s hutong cracks like stolen apricot jam, how bicycle baskets overflow with pear blossoms pretending to be snow.
Youth isn’t in the device, but in how it fails. The A300’s blooming highlights? That’s spring refusing to hold its breath. The chromatic aberration around temple eaves? Time itself lens-flaring. When my focus hesitates on a girl’s flying hair instead of her face, the sensor shrugs: “So what? She’s moving, alive—aren’t you?”
Come July, I’ll let CMOS harvest summer’s ripe light. But today, my CCD and I chase adolescent photons—those wild particles that haven’t yet learned to behave.
sony a300 with minolta 100mm-200mm f4.5sony a300 with minolta 100mm-200mm f4.5sony a300 with minolta 100mm-200mm f4.5sony a300 with minolta 100mm-200mm f4.5
After the sleet surrendered, Beijing exhales a sapphire sky— clouds dissolve into spun sugar, wind sheds its iron teeth.
This German lens, once sworn to contrast sharp as Black Forest pines, to colors steeped in Rhine wine, hesitates before such tenderness.
In the RAW womb of light, I knead shadows like dough— temper the steel-edged gradients, let pixels breathe chrysanthemum tea.
Now the frame remembers: how March air hums between ancient eaves, how dust motes cling to willow’s first yawn. Zeiss optics, schooled in Teutonic precision, learn to trace the curvature of time—
a city’s slow blink, softened by dynasties of thaw.
sony a7s with ziess jena 35mm f2.4sony a7s with ziess jena 35mm f2.4
Hey there, I’m Little White, a clever pup who loves lounging on the couch and watching the world go by. Recently, my owner took me out for a sneaky stroll to the streets, and wow—what a treasure trove of photo opps! Tonight, I squinted out the window, streetlights twinkling, as the night turned those cyclists and motorbike riders into my very own “moving stars.” Check out that pic—folks zooming by on bikes and scooters, racing through the intersection like they’re late for the next big adventure… or maybe just trying to beat the traffic light! I couldn’t help but wonder—humans, with all that speed, would you need me to lick your bruises if you wipe out?
The real laugh, though, is that dinosaur balloon tied to the fence at the crossroad! It’s slouched over like it’s saying, “Hey, pup, I’m lazier than you—wind blows, and I just sway. Pretty cool, huh?” I stared at it, nearly cracking up—clearly the inflatable “roadblock star” is putting on a deep, thoughtful act. The cars whiz by like a shiny river, red and green lights flashing, while people hustle through life—some grinning, some frowning. I come and go here, watching them live, laugh, and worry, and it’s like I’ve picked up a bit of life’s meaning myself. Maybe tomorrow I’ll nudge my owner to get me a camera to snap these street “actors”—though, of course, the real star should be me!
Winter is nearly gone now, though the cold lingers, a faint sharpness in the air, and the city seems to carry its own kind of chill, distant and reserved. I’ve been careful, I suppose, in keeping myself apart, a little different from others, though I hardly notice how it happens—how my eyes catch the small, strange things that slip through the cracks of the everyday. This evening, the sun hung low, its light broken by a thick seam of clouds, and it felt almost unreal, like something from a film—perhaps that black hole in Interstellar, silent and immense. I reached for my camera, quickly, as if I could trap it, that fleeting moment when the world seemed to pause and whisper something I couldn’t quite grasp.
Photographers in this world always see things differently. But those who embrace black-and-white photography are, without question, set further apart.
In this world, some people don’t understand black-and-white photography and can’t grasp how to capture it. Others understand it but lack the courage to explore its depths.
Nowadays, when you can grab almost anything from the supermarket, I’ve noticed how little I interact with nature anymore. My most recent “nature moment” came from peeling back the rind of an orange – that bright citrus scent lingered on my hands like bottled sunshine. Realizing this, I immediately reached for my camera. Maybe you can catch a hint of its scent through the image.
It’s hard to believe, but two years ago, everyone wore a mask! Now, many people have gotten into the habit of wearing masks, and of course, more people don’t wear masks anymore. Sometimes, what happened two years ago seems like two days ago. Time really does fly!
