I used to think style was something you discovered — like a colour palette buried in your subconscious, waiting to emerge when inspiration struck. But style is not found. Style is grown. It’s the residue left behind by repetition. It’s what happens when you walk the same streets, shoot through the same lens, and keep showing up even when the city doesn’t want to be photographed.
That’s why I picked the 28 mm field of view on my GFX100RF. Not because it’s the “cool street-photography lens,” but because it demands battery-in, boots-on accountability. It’s a border I must respect, a physical geometry, a field of view I must learn to live within.
The 28 mm Commitment
When I use a 35 mm lens with its 28mm field of view on a medium-format sensor, I commit to something. I commit to intimacy. I commit to context. I commit to being in the frame, not above it.
I can’t hover. I don’t stand back and watch. I enter. I walk into the collision of humanity and architecture, of concrete and reflection, of glass and movement. And through that collision, I begin to see our city differently — no longer as a postcard, but as a system of rhythms, moods, tensions, fleeting gestures.
That’s what the 28 mm field of view gives me. Perspective. Presence. Pressure. It pushes me to put people, spaces, light, shadow — all at once — into one frame. The wide field forces layering: foregrounds brushing past backgrounds, diagonals that lead the eye, negative space pressing against form. The image doesn’t cradle a subject — it pushes against it, demands engagement.
Over time, those demands will sharpen my instincts. I will start to know when edges will frame themselves. I will begin to predict where eyes will fall. You sense what the city wants you to photograph before you even lift the camera.
Building a Vocabulary, Not a Formula
Style doesn’t come from copying — it comes from constraint. From repetition. From discipline. It arrives when you stop chasing aesthetics and start chasing honesty.
For months now, I have carried the GFX through every routine walk around Toronto — dawn light, midday crowds, twilight glows. I did not go out with assignments. I went out with my senses open. I watched for shapes in windows, reflections in puddles, bodies pressed against glass. I kept looking for that thin seam where human stories meet architecture.
And slowly, consistent themes began to emerge. I saw an attraction to edges — where light hits concrete at an angle, where a silhouette meets a glass façade, where humanity brushes up against geometry. Not staged. Not perfect. But real. Tense. Alive.
This repetition — walking, watching, shooting, editing, sharing — I want it to turn into a vocabulary. A quiet signature.
Sharing Before the Style Is “Done”
Some photographers wait until they feel “ready” — until their style is polished, cohesive, “on brand.” They think audiences want perfection. But I don’t believe that. People connect to evolution. To honesty. To struggle.
If I waited until I had a “final style,” I’d still be editing raw files in solitude, afraid to publish. But the reason I’m building a platform — a blog, a portfolio, a presence — is because I believe in sharing the evolution, not hiding it. Sharing the scar tissue. The near-misses. The experiments. The sudden frames that surprise me.
Because when someone scrolls your feed and pauses — often out of confusion, or curiosity, or even discomfort — that pause is more powerful than perfection. It’s a chance for someone else to see the city through a slightly different lens. And maybe connect. Maybe reflect. Maybe feel.
Style as a Living Archive
So that’s what the 28 mm field of view is for me — not a tool in the usual sense, but a boundary. A discipline. A contract with the city: I shoot what I see, not what I wish to see. And the GFX100RF is not just a camera — it’s a restraint. It keeps me honest. It slows me down when I get lazy. It demands I place the frame with clarity and intention.
That combination — fixed lens body as a constraint + discipline — has given me something better than a look. It’s given me perspective. A way of seeing that feels honest. Unfiltered. Unapologetic.
I don’t know what my final “style” will look like. Maybe I never will. And perhaps that’s the point. Style doesn’t end at definition. It evolves. It responds. It grows — as we grow.
My social-media presence, my blog, these are not just stages to perform in. They are a living archive of becoming. A reflection of decisions — technical, emotional, instinctive. Every post, every frame, is a step deeper into how I see Toronto, and how I see myself through this city.
Because visibility without identity is noise, identity without visibility is silence.
What I’m building is neither noise nor silence — but a voice.
And that voice begins at the 28 mm field of view.