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Preserve ordinary scenes as beautiful images, by carefully framing the passing moments of everyday life. This, I believe, is a wonderful experience.

Preserve ordinary scenes as beautiful images, by carefully framing the passing moments of everyday life. This, I believe, is a wonderful experience.

You may think you have an uneventful life. No matter where you live, no matter what you do, those dramatic, fascinating events rarely take place. Every element of your life — from the street you walk every day, to the nearby river that is too familiar to even warrant a look — dissolves into the routine, and fades from your attention.

That’s why I recommend that you get a camera — and especially a camera that might seem even just a little too special.
All PENTAX cameras, including the PENTAX K-1 Mark II, have a sharp, attractive shutter-release sound. Coupled with this sound, the process of looking through the optical viewfinder provides the fun of really seeing and framing the images that were previously buried in your everyday life.

It’s very hard for people to notice the changes in their daily life unless they pay very close attention, because everyday activities are just seen as routine. If you have a camera that provides excitement every time you release the shutter, however, you will be more conscious about routine events, and recognize them as more personal experiences.

Since I obtained the PENTAX K-3 three and a half years ago,
I have heard this lovely sound every single day. I believe that it helped expand my perspective of the world, and that my life has taken a dramatic turn for the better. Everyone should have a special camera that brightens your life and provides new discoveries. In my case, it has to be a PENTAX!

I try to refocus on light, something that fades from awareness in everyday life. That’s when I discover the scenes that previously I haven’t noticed, and become aware of the incidents happening in otherwise familiar locations.

These aren’t the kind of images you can capture only in certain weather conditions, or at specific locations.
Rather, they are the products of the beautiful light that can be found in nearly every familiar location in your neighborhood.

Your curiosity and spirit of adventure can be raised just by stepping into an alley you’ve never been in before. It’s all a new exploration. I remember as a child walking through the neighborhood around my house as if I were the hero of an adventure story, and discovering something new and special every day. That’s the freshness that comes from seeing things through a child’s eyes.

Photo 1: Even with a horizontal composition, you can emphasize the depth of field by highlighting different shades of light stacked in layers. In this image, I made the middle section stand out by sandwiching it between the shaded areas at top and bottom. I also adjusted my shooting position so that I could create different shades of light and dark in the highlight section in the middle. When capturing an image, the most important factor in my photographic works is how to incorporate the repetition of light and shadow in my composition. My goal is to crop out something dramatic within an ordinary scene, rather than merely capture an obviously beautiful element.

But those formerly special experiences eventually became unexciting, routine events, and I realized that I had even forgotten to look up at the sky. I wonder if I ever realized that this change had happened to me.

Traveling in my car and walking around in the woods are very important activities for me, because I come into contact with many unfamiliar, eventful happenings when I do them.

I recently discovered, though, that I was wrong about my thinking that I needed to look for something unfamiliar or eventful. I now understand that there is more to it, something I’d like to point it out clearly in this article.

Photo 2: Even when capturing an ordinary scene, key control through the camera’s Custom Image function becomes extremely important in image rendition. There is a fundamental difference between contrast control and brightness adjustment. If you raise the contrast too high, it will produce a harsh-toned, high-gradation image. However, if you combine middle-tone adjustment and contrast control, you can adjust contrast more flexibly, while retaining true-to-life gradations in the shadow areas.

Every person has places that are familiar to them.
For example, I find Kawasaki city’s industrial district very nostalgic. Others may find this familiarity in urban areas full of noise and high-rise buildings, or in rural areas surrounded by nature and mountains.

When you step into an unfamiliar alley (or similar side track) in a familiar area, it’s the beginning of a new adventure.

Over the past 15 years, my neighborhood has grown increasingly full of gigantic apartment complexes.
I sometimes have the feeling that my normal life is disintegrating little by little, and that my neighborhood is no longer as quite as it used to be.

I encourage you to always seek out new scenes, rather than keep on chasing after images fixed in your memory.
Walk around your neighborhood as your curiosity leads you. The world is far more beautiful than what is in our memories.

Photo 3: This is a simple image of chair legs, so I opted for a more space-conscious composition. Key control is also an important factor in this image. After lowering the exposure level to reduce the overall brightness, I raised the brightness of mid-tone areas via key control. This kept the highlight areas from being completely washed out.

Photo 4: No matter where the location is, you can create an impressive work of art by having a clear understanding of the lighting conditions. I used the Bleach Bypass mode of the Custom Image function to capture all the sample images used in this article, because this mode produces rich colors more distinctively, and depicts subtle light more clearly.

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