All kinds of everything

7 May

May 5th 2026

I had one more day with my borrowed Fujifilm X-T5, so I thought I’d venture out for a stroll to squeeze a bit more enjoyment from it. I have been quite surprised by how much I have enjoyed using it, although it certainly has a steep learning curve when it comes to using film simulations. I need more than a few days to even begin to understand the depth of its possibilities, and the extent of its challenges too.

I decided to head into Sunderland city centre, but not so much the shopping centre area. I spent most of my time among the streets on the east side of the city centre. Some of this has become a little run down, however, there is also new shoots of redevelopment occurring. It is not an area I frequent very often so I thought it would make an interesting place to visit. Sometimes just seeing something different or new can spark a bit of creativity.

I committed to one restriction on this walk – I was using a variant of the Acros black and white film simulation. Once more I was throwing myself at the mercy of jpegs. It has been quite some time since I went out with the aim of shooting monochrome images. My aim was to make basic corrections (crop & straighten) and little else. I did this on my last walk, and it proved quite successful. Would it work the same way again?

My plan once more was just to shoot what caught my eye. Early on my walk, this meant becoming a little obsessed with graffiti – shooting it, not creating it. For a start, I struggle drawing simple shapes so artistic paintwork would be a little out of my league. I have always appreciated the skills involved in this artform and was enjoying some of what I had stumbled upon. I had to force myself to put the camera down and walk away after a while as I had visions of just having hundreds of photos of spray-painted creations. Also, I’m not sure black and white was doing some of it any favours.

As I wandered, I realized I was becoming more interested in the details around me, more so than wider streetscape. It is amazing when you realise just how little attention you can often pay to the small things when out and about. Many of us are too busy rushing about, or with our heads focused on our screens to notice what is around us. It could be an architectural detail, a splash of colour in someone’s clothing or on a wall, or even a sticker on a lamppost.

Then there is the mundane, the ‘uninteresting’. For example, I was interested in an industrial fridge that was waiting to be collected. There were three office chairs that were in the lane behind an office. An empty cider can that was wedged behind a drainpipe. Metalwork as seen through a moulded glass window. Plus, my old favourite, telegraph poles and wires. They have always fascinated me. It is a mix of the shapes of the cables as they stretch from the post, and the curiosity of the calls they have handled throughout the years. The stories they could tell…

I stopped for a late breakfast and thought about where to head next. I decided to head over to the multi-story car park just a few minutes away. This was primarily to see what the view would be. Would there be a nice vista? The weather was overcast so I didn’t expect anything too exciting in terms of lighting, but I figured it would be a good scouting exercise if nothing else. Although I didn’t get anything of any note, it was good to know what you could see from that vantage point. It may be somewhere I can return to on another day. The most interesting part for me was photographing the inside of the bridge that runs across the main road to the car park. There were no people, so I took the opportunity to grab a shot of it whilst it was uncluttered with humans.

I did the same thing in the car park on top of the shopping centre. It was nice to see the city from a different angle, but there wasn’t much that grabbed my interest. If I had a wide-angle lens, there may well have been one shot, but I was only armed with the 50mm full-frame equivalent lens which was too tight for the image I wanted. I couldn’t reposition as the wall of the car park blocked the view. Sometimes you must accept you cannot get the shot and move on.

When it came to editing the images from the morning’s walk, I realised I would have to do a few more tweaks than just cropping and straightening. The Acros variant I had used had created images that were a little too warm for my liking. Nothing terrible and possibly preferred by some folk. However, they weren’t for me. This was just a case of dropping the temperature and tint by a few points to neutralise the warm tones a little. I also realised I’d dropped a clanger on a few images. I used the screen to compose a few shots and tweaked the exposure compensation to create what I thought was correct. However, although not a sunny day, it was bright enough to have activated a slight tint in the Transitions lenses in my glasses! This meant things had looked a little darker to me than they were. And to think they let me out in public on my own…

In terms of the X-T5 and the 33mm f1.4 lens I had borrowed, I was suitably impressed. I feel this is a camera you must spend quality time with to really understand how you can squeeze every inch of quality and ability from it, especially with the film simulations and the myriads of recipes available to try online. Would I ditch my current set up and switch to Fujifilm? No. With live music, I often shoot in low light and sometimes at distance, so my main body would comfortably outperform the X-T5. Would I consider adding something like the X-T5 as a second setup for pure pleasure but with the ability to use it as a second body if needed? Absolutely. I have had fun over the few days I have had the Fujifilm camera, and that is something that should not be underestimated.

Although I had fun, I didn’t get anything of any quality. There are a couple I quite like because they appeal to my random view of the world, but I wouldn’t rush to make large scale prints. This was one of those days when the process was the winner, not the outcome. And I am fine with that. And with that, here are a few more of the images I captured: