johnwrightphoto

A member of a very very well known ‘boy band’ addressed me as J-DOG Today!? Just as I finished shooting him he shook my hand and said “Spot on J-DOG’ !? Lovely chap, all of them were…but J-DOG!? how was I supposed to take that! without feeling busted. It’s not like I’m some new kid on the block :)

God bless the homeless girl sitting outside Chelmsford railway station tonight. She doesn’t belong with the hardened tramps she’s trying to befriend and she doesn’t belong with the commuters, pouring past her as they arrive home from a hard days soul selling in the MEDIOCRI-CITY of London, looking at her ‘like I’m lowlife’

She didn’t belong cadging cigarettes from me as she told me with tears in her eyes of her education: ‘Oh man, I’ve got 3 degrees…’ I resisted the temptation to respond with a sympathetic ‘Oh!…Babylove…’

Seriously, she’s a lost soul and my heart broke as she later tried to introduce me to her street hardened ‘friends’ as THE NICEST GUY blah blah… All I did was give her a cigarette and smirk to myself at my unsaid Diana Ross reference while lying to her that I ‘wasn’t judging her’

It’s too cold and too dark to be her. Sitting outside a train station in suburban nowhere England with junkies and drunkies trying to find someone to listen to her sad story. She still looks like she should take a train to a jobin the morning and then back to a house at night. Soon she won’t look like that.

God help her.

Heh Everyone. I’m looking for someone to do some graphic/font work for me on a special project. Is anyone interested? J\W ?

The first camera i ever owned was a CANON T90. It was an incredible curvy, 250th sync, hi tech looking thing and it made me think i was the mustard. I’d used NIKON F3s and FM2s that belonged to my boss for a few months but the T90 I bought and owned.

Great. I had a camera. 

I stuck a 50mm f hardly anything on it and it made the world look AMAZING. But then, I stuck a soppy 30something to 300andsomething mm lens on it and it made the world look just rubbish!?

I realised there and then that cameras didn’t matter a hoot. The thing that REALLY mattered was the glass you put in front of it.

The T90 is long gone, ran under a tap of cold water by an ex girlfriend as a reward for a real or imagined (i can’t remember) act of unfaithfulness and these days I’m very lucky to have flagship cameras in abundance. It’s EASY for me to dismiss good camera bodies as irrelevant but ever since my T90 days i’ve stuck by  what I learned and I’ve always made sure I buy lenses first and bodies second.

And on the whole, apart from a continued relationship with wide zoom lenses (some of which are STILL soppy) I’ve stuck to f2.8 lenses or brighter and it’s fair to say that most things have been sharp.

But a month or so ago i received my NIKON 85mm f1.4!

GOSH.

Seriously, this lens is so SHARP it’s kind of…daunting :)

I’m a lover of the good old 50mm f1.4 and it just produces great results over and over again. But honestly, if you’ve used it and know how sharp that is…the 85 blows it away! :)

It’s seriously challenging medium format…in fact…to my eyes…it may even surpass it.

Now i’m not going to drift into any technical mumbo…i wouldn’t know how to. I just feel this lens is SO good that it’s right to say that 1 I’ve used it extensively and 2 I’ve found it astonishingly good.

If this lens is a sign of where NIKON lens production is going then the future is going to be VERY bright indeed. 

So there you are: A very very rare John Wright equipment review thing. In summary: NIKON 85mm f1.4: VERY VERY GOOD THING

Why is it when I help tramps with money or cigarettes they then, almost to a man, offer me a drink!? What is that about!? It just happened AGAIN! a middle aged Polish guy just shufflled up to me with a bottle of White Lightning cider and asked me for some change. I handed him what I had with a smile and a ‘good luck’, he nods his thanks, looks me up and down, pauses for a beat and OFFERS ME A SWIG OF HIS DRINK!?!? Tramp guys of London PLEASE! Enough with the implied empathy!

…Well, we’re very proud to announce that NIKON UK have today launched the NIKON FOUNDATION, an initiative to help photography students get started in the photographic industry. It takes the form of a photography competition open to 3rd year students with the unusual prize of…A JOB WITH US! :) To see full details (and a funny photo of our team) visit http://www.nikonfoundation.co.uk/ GOOD LUCK to anyone who enters!?

Hello everybody. Does anyone know a greyhound that would like to come to London and have it’s photo taken? And some video shot of it? Preferably one that’s still racing. There’s a very good reason for this…All will be revealed :)

A huge thankyou to photographer J Konrad Schmidt who stepped in and assisted me at my shoot in the Leica studio at Photokina yesterday. Check out his fantastic work at jkonradschmidt.com I don’t know where he appeared from but he was like a miracle :) I was unprepared and surrounded by Briese lighting and an exhibition stand full of people and Konrad just…got me where I needed to get! :) I’ll post the pictures later. J

…and looking forward to a great day with the nice people of Company Pictures. BIG portraits shoot and a film poster concept! Great days! :)

This guy is funny!!!!! Go follow him.

For those of you who know the ‘trendies’ of East London you’ll laugh out loud. For those of you who don’t you’ll be introduced to a social phenomena…and he might just save your good fashion sense :)

Go follow him right now!

For those of you, who like me, spend half your shoot time wishing you could throw your ‘raw capture’ software application out the window, i can honestly say that there is hope…i played, tethered, with the beta version of LIGHTROOM 3 today, (that sounds…wrong…) but frankly…it could be ‘the 1’ It looks VERY VERY promising indeed! There’s stuff on the Adobe site…http://bit.ly/aD32Ar and loads on the forums if you’re interested. Seriously, it looks GOOOOOOOOD! Gonna use it on a shoot tomorrow…my tune might change :)

Come along and join me at the AOP gallery in Shoreditch on March 31st. I’ll be doing a career talk and answering questions about the industry and photography in general. Good opportunity for career advice for those of you who write to me asking how to get started in this game. 

I’ll publish a link with more info soon.