PurePhotography: The Nikon DF

I can still remember taking my first photos…

It was a beautiful spring morning in Arizona and the light was coming down through some trees and hitting a little gathering of water from a previous day’s rain. A friend of mine was across from the water and the reflection, water and light struck me a beautifully symmetric. I held up my Nikon F and shot only one frame. Yet to this day I identify that image as one that began to steer my path into photography. There was no money involved, no fame to be had… it was Pure Photography.

Ask any photographer their earliest memory of photography, every one of them will have a different yet impactful story. In all of our careers, there is a moment, not the one that deals with being a professional photographer, but one far more simplistic. It is the moment when we fall in love with photography.

Like any relationship, photography is a journey. There will be times when we struggle through the feelings that we have lost our creative visions. However, there is balance in times that we feel the clarity from producing imagery that matches your mind’s eye.

What Nikon has done by releasing the new Nikon DF has allowed us to step back in time. For me it is being able to approach subjects and life differently. They have given me the key to creating images, not as Blair Bunting the professional photographer, but as Blair Bunting that kid that thought the light looked nice.

Now there will be a lot of reviews of this camera that will nitpick it for technical details or price. But a word of advice if I may.

Don’t ask what this camera will do for your photography. Ask what the camera can do for your love of photography.