Portraits inspirations and photographers worth following

Youtube gave birth to many individuals showing their artistic talents online, some are good and some are talented video editors with no photography talents.

I found myself often mesmerised by images taken by street photographers of the old like Vivian Maier, Fan Ho and also those already established ones like Steve Mccurry. The younger generation of portrait photographers like Bella Kotak is also worth following.

Photography have undergone a lot of changes in this decade, the gears and tools that photographers use are also evolving. When we see some instagram profiles of people that have no popularity and body of work, we could also find inspiration there. Although I personally found mobile phone image quality to be nothing short of scam for still photography, that didn’t stop me from admiring the composition, work that could be found on Instagram of unknown but talented folks. (If you want really good image quality without spending a grand on crappy phones, check out cameras like D40x, D80, D200, they cost below USD 200 and out performs of any image quality you can find in Samsung S10, S11, future S20 or IPhone 18.)

While reading this site, I would be sharing images taken by me, mostly on cheap gears, if you are looking to de-gas yourself, you would find the ride enjoyable.

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The problem I have found repeatedly is the lack of good photographers to follow on youtube. Often videos that I have seen add a few photos to support the content or review and while I could not deny that at first glance, the music, the presentation of the images was promising but I realized very quickly they are very mediocre images and the expectation of seeing something good turns out disappointing. It is as if a salesman were to show you a car and with lots of excitement in his showmanship but the car shown is in reality a plain worned out Hyundai, you could feel that you would love to agree with the salesman to justify his effort but you can’t.

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Let’s look at a list of people that I used to follow but no longer due to my own growth and understanding and some that I am following for different reasons.

Steve Huff

This is the guy that I found lots of nice articles on Leica. I got my first M9 after reading his blogs and posts. As time goes by, I began to see a pattern that every new gear seems to be his favourite ones and the content tailored for sales conversion. I am not contending on his sincerity as it might as well be true that each upgrade is the next best camera. The good stuffs on his page are about editing, where he showed how he got those straight building lines and portraits that he ran thru Nik Color Efex Pro.

A site to follow if you are looking for some reviews on high end gears and as a 2nd opinion, it is not a safe site if you are suffering from GAS 🙂

Eric Kim

What I love about Eric Kim is his articles on how to travel light. Those tips are gold and Eric is like an influencer of sorts when it comes to street photography. The images however are a bit too “normal” for my taste. What I believe one could learn from Eric is the courage and strategy he has when moving on the streets and you should then take images that moves you in your own way. Eric however like most of us, was found to be flip-flopping between his opinion, one day film is the best, the next day he is on Ricoh GR2 and perhaps he in candidly sharing his own progression in

Tony Northrup

This is one of the youtube influencers for photography. Tony together with his wife have probably steered more people towards Sony than any ads out there. The subjects that Tony chose on youtube are mostly click bait driven but he tries to make good of it by putting in personal opinion and stats that appeals to the intellectuals.

The topic he did on m43 is dead is one such controversial example and taking such a stand only means you are either very confident of the data you have or you have no idea how shallow you are. My own personal views on that is as uncertain as anyone else, I have Panasonic G9 with some cool lenses and I also have a Pen-F that I kept as a collection as one of the most beautiful digital camera ever made. Do I enjoy the G9, yes, it has one of the best ergonomics for me with decent quality. Am I investing in further lenses like the 1.2 for M43, no, APSC and FF are clearly the better options, mirrorless era is here and unless you are only doing birding, there isn’t much advantage at all.

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Mattias Burling

Another influencer that I occasionally look up his youtube to see what else he is peddling on when it comes to gears that people no longer wants. This is the guy who I think is responsible for the resilient Ebay prices for Pentax Q.

In a way I appreciate his views and sharing on how these small sensors could be used to produce very good images, after all, 1/1.7 sensor is still bigger than almost every mobile phone’s sensor out there today except the Huawei P20/30.

However he will go on to show the same line of argument when it comes to Pentax MX-1 and I am sure other cameras like GXR or some obscure camera will come into his attention and ends up in a video. In short, if you are buying these cams, let me just make it clear for you, there isn’t anything really great about the IQ, it is just the sensor size being used and since today so much was compared with mobile phones, some people are perplexed that some 8 years old camera could produce nice images.

If anything, we should pay less attention to the sales pitch thrown by every mobile phone manufacturers out there on cameras. You can only squeeze so much from low quality data coming from that mobile sensor sizes.

Ming Thein

This is a powerhouse nerd when it comes to photography. Todate there is no one who could express technical aspects of cameras and it’s output like Ming Thein. He was once appointed as the Chief Strategy for Hasselblad only to be shocked by the culture of the new management from China when DJI took over.

A short digression, does any country in their right mind knows that apps like TaoBao or Lazada is only promoting business one way to China and would eradicate local small retailers and infant industries? It is mind boggling how any government is having a blindspot on that. India is waking up with their rejection on Amazon’s entry despite the promise of billions by Jeff. I am not a fan of trade war, but every gov should be focusing on building the local industries and supporting the local small retailers.

I once paid for his lessons sitting in for 2 hours while he goes thru my images and providing feedback and exposition on light. While his street images are often judged as cold and soulless, his technical understanding and delivering product images like watches are up there with the best.

I have no idea why he roped in Robin ( a M43 supporter) to a site named after himself but there is much we can learn from MT. In recent months, his content no longer carries the “medium format is better” vibes since he is no longer with Hassy.

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If you follow my instagram click into the models profiles and you will be surprised how good their own photos are taken by mobile phones. Those facts always keep me humble and the notion that we can learn from anyone, even models with a phone. Here is one example, Carmen a 22 years old student that I collaborated with end of 2019.