Shooting Digitals with Annabel Condit (Why God, Why?).

Here we are, the economy is slipping away in our arms like Gwen in The Amazing Spiderman 2. Due to the harsh inflation of the analog community, I decided to do a digital shoot. Kodak may not have personally attacked me, but they might as well have with these god-forsaken Portra prices.

It's a crispy Sunday morning, anxiety is in the air. I groan as I roll over and see the fifteenth alarm of the day: 9:03 A.M.

"Why did I book this shoot?" I ask myself, grabbing a sock that somehow flew off my feet in the midst of the night. My feet are chilly, I haven't acclimated to the midwestern breeze.

This isn't like me, I swear. I'm an artist. The warmth of my Hasselblad 500c should be warming my toes, yet instead the piglets feel the cool steel (magnesium alloy, they claim) of Nikon's Z6.

I do my Sunday ritual: Shower, brush my teeth, clean my apartment, cry, eat breakfast, drink a latte, scream, pack my camera bag, and wipe the tears away with my lens wipe (I don't actually cry but let's pretend I do).

I'm ready. I'm ready like SpongeBob on a youthful evening shift at the Krabby Patty.

Annabel is not. Annabel is late. Annabel had some sort of mix up with clothing tape (or something like that, I don't know, I'm a photographer).

She gets to my apartment and we take the ever-trustworthy CTA Line-124 to downtown Chicago. We walk, we talk, and we stop outside the Chicago Opera. At this moment I had a vintage Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 on my camera, with a deep red filter threaded upon the tip.

There was no going back, it was black and white as the prophets foretold. You cannot remove the red cast of a filter, so unless I wanted a portfolio-destroyer, black and white it was. I snapped some photos and we walked towards West Loop.

As we progressed through the day, we stopped at key points to swap lenses and take differing photos. I tried the 14-30mm f/4 S-Line lens, built for the Z-series.

I later swapped to my trusty 50mm f/1.8 S-Line, filter-less, like a middle schooler who just learned how to be edgy. My favorite pieces from the set strain from the latter. But I digress, for I am but a messenger of the sensory technologies within my cold digital camera.

I would say the set overall turned out well. I was personally going for a Peter-Lindbergh inspired look, however I seem to be clinging onto a clean style rather than expose myself to the raw conditions of his style.

Annabel liked them, which is swell, for if she didn't, I may have lost a friend (again). Her agency posted two as well, so hey, I must have done something right.

Anyways, get out there and shoot, so you too can experience the thrill of shooting photos in a recession.

-nicho