Saturday, July 22, 2006



About 20 years ago, for a short while, I considered becoming a movie stills photographer. The stills photographer shoots pictures during the production of a movie. Towards this end I plunked down around $1600 for a used Nikon 200mm F-2 lens. It is a very big lens designed to be used wide open.

I never became a stills photographer nor did I ever shoot fashion on Robson Street. For fashion, this lens, with its very narrow depth of field, would be useful.

But I have used this lens to photograph the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in rehearsal (here, Marc Destrube) and once to get this lineup of the the US Airforce Thunderbirds. Perhaps I should sell the lens. But I prefer to keep it as a folly. And I never know when I might just have to photograph another rehearsal or perhaps even the US Navy Blue Angels.