A summer adventure stroll
around the house

The Covid crisis suddenly changed the lifestyle of millions of people around the world. For me, long trips to far-off places turned into short trips around the block. This coincided with my youngest son starting to walk. A good opportunity to do some learning-to-walk sessions.
Since then, we’ve gotten into the habit of going on mini-adventures. Sometimes the purpose of the mission is to run an errand for dinner. Other times it’s for no particular reason. It’s like being in scouting mode.

By way of equipment, my son takes one of his favorite toys or a stick he picks up along the way. I grab my camera and off we go. Even on a micro-expedition, you need to stock up on supplies along the way. A packet of candy, an ice cream or a cold drink, and the adventure continues.

There are many amazing discoveries to be made when you’re little. We marvel at simple things that are just around the corner. Small animals such as a cicada with its legs in the air on the ground, a mother duck with her young, cicada skins hanging from trees, ants busy carrying bugs ten times their size. Big things like a fire engine, the train, staircases that look like waterfalls, toboggan castles and so on. And then the river, the sky, the clouds, the trees that cross and surround the bustling city.

* The images without photograph data have been created with lenses other than
SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary

Colors, sounds and scents come to mind when we think of these things. Of the five senses evoked, especially when it comes to images, what colors are memories made of? What color was that cicada, that staircase, that slide?
 
In his book “The Colours of Our Memories”, Michel Pastoureau talks about the very special way in which certain personal memories are associated with certain colors. This raises the question of recalling the particular color of certain objects buried in our memories.
 
The concept of “Serio Ludere” has been an important part of my artistic research over the years. This oxymoron, used by Erasmus and other Renaissance thinkers, is Latin for “to play seriously.” As the term implies, it allows us to take liberties with serious subjects. On the other hand, there’s nothing so trivial that it’s not worth considering if you look at it the right way. That’s why I like to mix elements and ideas from both popular and classical culture in my work.

SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary, FUJIFILM X-S20, ISO 400, F3.6, 1/140s, 10mm

SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary, FUJIFILM X-S20, ISO 80, F5.6, 1/60s, 10mm

SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary, FUJIFILM X-S20, ISO 80, F5.6, 1/400s, 10mm

So, in this series of photos, I had fun embarking on an adventure around the house, trying to keep up with the bouncy rhythm of my youngest son’s games. Like much of my photographic work in recent years, this series is based on observing my surroundings, the people and places that inspire me. The particular half-color, half-black-and-white treatment I applied to these photographs is linked to my work in drawing and painting in particular. I tried to combine the graphic aspect of black and white with bursts of bright color. What followed was a series of games with shapes, light and colors, accompanying my son’s games. The choice of color placement is intended to emphasize certain elements of the image. Here it’s mainly related to sensations, playfulness and the evocation of childhood memories.
 
Needless to say, in the middle of a game, asking my son to stop and pose, even if only for a few seconds, requires some hard bargaining. It’s not always successful and he can run far away from me. One solution for me was to aim wide. A few years ago, I started using FUJIFILM’s 16mm F1.4 R WR. Using a wide angle lens (equivalent to 24mm) comes in handy when photographing architecture, landscapes, and even children in action. So I immediately felt at ease with the SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary. I even had the ability to change focal length on the fly, something that is impossible with a fixed lens, obviously.

Focus even closer, get a wider framing is possible in a breeze. It’s like having two or three wide angle fixed lenses at hand any time. I liked this smoothness of operation. Another reason I like using wide lenses is that as a father of three kids, there are more chances to be able to get them into a composition, even if they are running in opposite directions. For this matter, a compact size lens such as this SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary coupled with a mirrorless camera is a great asset when dealing with these kinds of situations where you have to move and react quickly.
 
 
Thanks to its wide angle of view, I was able to put an emphasis on strong diagonals in the compositions of my images. After the playtime during the adventure stroll, it’s time for the next game of editing the images. Maybe due to my experience with drawing and painting, I feel the need to re-create the image in this phase to give it a stronger visual presence and a deeper meaning. I was able to get quite satisfying results with this lens in terms of contrast, and color so that I could push and use these qualities in order to create the final images.
 
The 10mm gives an exceptional field of view and the very short minimum focusing distance (11.6cm) was very useful to take pictures of my son from a very close distance and still be able to add parts of the landscape to interact with in the compositions. Of course, I think one needs to keep in mind the characteristics and limitations of such a wide angle zoom lens and use it to its potential.

SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary, FUJIFILM X-S20,
ISO 1600, F5, 1/140s, 18mm

All in all, using this lens was an enjoyable experience. The ability to zoom in to a focal length of 18mm and use the remarkable F2.8 aperture makes it possible to create atmospheric portraits that sufficiently separate the subject from the background, with a very pleasing bokeh effect. I found the SIGMA 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary to be lightweight and rather compact, especially when folding up the lens hood during transportation for instance. It’s an easy to carry and ready to use design.
 
Funny stuff is, I made life difficult by first trying to attach the dedicated and newly developed push-on type lens hood to the lens by turning it. I finally figured out that it attaches with a slight click. All you need to do is slightly push it on to the lens front. This way of attaching was quicker in operation and steadier than I thought it would be at first glance. It saves some precious time when you are in a rush, such as to embark on a mini-adventure with your kids.