Autumn in the old courtyards of Yerevan

My motivation to get out and shoot things is incredibly high at the moment. The transition into autumn is finally starting to be visible here in Yerevan and the streets are slowly growing colder with each day. I even felt quite a chill before sunset as I was sitting in this park! I think some of the motivation is seasonal, the autumn tones that appear are incredibly beautiful, and finally there's more humidity in the air so it doesn't feel so dry outside. But a large part of the motivation also comes from the fact that the vast majority of my recent document struggles are now over. I can finally focus on what I want to do and try to get the business actually going. Though this is also met with an unfortunate visa run that I must pursue going into the end of this week. I'm not looking forward to that!

Something I'm noticing this season is that I'm really interested in pushing my video stuff forward. Beyond just photography. So I've been grabbing the gimbal and getting out, utilising the stillness of it more as a tripod to help me get certain perspectives and shots that I want without it being too much of a challenge. The gimbal is a bit limited as its getting old now, as is the camera, but there's enough beauty to be captured even with those limitations. I'm quite surprised at how much I've been able to push the two recently. Somewhat exceeding my own expectations of what I'm capable of. These last few weeks have been some of the most fun with cameras I have had in a long time. Perhaps the aforementioned struggles also managed to breathe some new life into me creatively.

I shot each of these photographs while I roamed around in a park not too far from home. A bit of a walk that I didn't enjoy all that much. But I think some of that is just some laziness I'm feeling. Motivated, but not wanting to immediately walk everywhere! I sat at the park for a while, I looked around while sitting at a bench, noticing the beauty of the light as I had left home just before sunset. This little courtyard had recently seem a little bit of redevelopment, with some improvements made to its pathways. Something that's becoming quite common here in Yerevan as the European suddenly money seems free and endless. I shot these with the Soviet era Helios 44-2 with its focal length of 58mm, which produced a really up-close look and beautiful bokeh. I figured it would be too tight at first, but was quite happy with the results anyway.

I had a filter thrown over it despite that. A polariser to reduce some of that intensity in the light that was hitting some of the leaves around. I wanted to slightly reduce it so that nothing appeared blown out. I never usually put the filter over the Helios as the vintage glass tends to do a decent job and producing its own little characteristics, but I just wasn't sure that these would turn out alright or give me much freedom in post if they did seem too overexposed. After all, to get the nice bokeh effect it requires distance from the subject, but also having the aperture either fully open or very close to being open.

I love the results. I love the look that the 4:3 aspect ratio provides. I have no idea why I didn't jump into this sooner to give myself yet another way to run around environments and capture things. Without it ever feeling too boring or familiar.