The grocery store at night - Part 2

Come closer, will you?
London, ON
October 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram

In photography as in life, everything is a tradeoff.

Zoom lenses, for example, give you lots of flexibility to go in close or pull way back - all with a twist of your wrist. The cost, though, is reduced image quality. Because a lens that tries to be all things to all people often ends up being a master of none.

Prime lenses, with fixed focal lengths, are the ultimate photographic weapon. Image quality is typically higher - sharper, fewer distortions and aberrations, even tougher because they're mechanically simpler. They may force you to zoom with your feet, but in doing so, they open up entirely new ways to tell a story.

For the most part, that's the blessing of smartphone photography. While some newer phones add telephoto and zoom capabilities, they are, for the most part, zoom-with-your-feet propositions.

So on this cold night in a darkened parking lot, I used my feet to change composition. To see the same scene from different positions. To wander around and feel the echoes of the space first-hand instead of reaching in from afar. To appreciate it in different ways.

You've already seen the wide shot. Now we're moving in a bit. To the point where lines and geometries dominate. Where textures begin to present themselves. Where the overwhelming loneliness of this place, at any time of day, comes into focus.

We'll have more in our next post. But I hope what you've seen thus far gives you pause when you're telling your own stories.

Because the stories we tell can shift depending on where we are when we tell them. And yet again, this is just as true in everyday life as it is in photography.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #random #night #grocery #store #retail #photography #apple #iphone #iphone11 #shotoniphone #nightphotography #nightmode #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded #lifeinthemargins #family #everything