Recently my friend and fellow photographer, Amy Horn, and I set off on another downtown challenge. This time, it was in our hometown of Flagstaff, and to bring only one lens. Also, we didn’t compare this time so these are all my images.

But let’s be clear, I’m a minimalist and shoot with one lens ALL the time. It’s annoying to me and a big waste of time to be constantly rummaging around in my camera bag for “the perfect lens for the perfect shot”. I like to shoot and keep moving. Shoot what inspires me at the moment. Photograph things that people make comments like: “Cool, where was that?” or “Nice, I didn’t see that”. I have a favorite lens, my 14-150mm, which equates to a 28-300mm, as my go-to, all-purpose, only lens I take on overseas adventures, lens. This is not that lens.

I only have four lenses. The above-mentioned favorite is my “long lens”. I also have a lightweight, fits in my front pants pocket, 60mm macro lens which I literally NEVER use, a 35-100mm (70-200mm equivalent) “portrait” lens which I mostly use for…portraits, AND an ultrawide, a 7-14mm (14-28mm equivalent) which I used for this shoot. I have a twin Black Rapid harness that I hang my ultra-wide and long lens off of when I shoot events or volunteer Photo Guide for Arizona Highways PhotoScapes workshops. That way I feel prepared to shoot any event thrown at me.

So again, Amy and I donned our Pandemic Masks and headed downtown from her house with a single camera and lens. Here’s what I captured.

I tend to shoot details. The thing about a UW lens is that it extends, not compresses, the image. Here’s a sticker laden trash can along San Francisco street showing an empty street and sidewalk at 9:45 in the morning. Good job quarantining, Flagstaff!!

Here are a couple more examples of having a strong foreground but also an in-focus background. Long lenses tend to blur backgrounds depending on the f-stop you have set.

You definitely have to shoot things close to the lens. Things you can walk up to as you don’t have the “reach” of a long lens.

Who doesn’t love a good repeating pattern? With a short lens, it’s easier to get the whole image in focus.

A longer lens has a shallower depth of field

I was only able to capture this Flamingo Snake…? with my UW lens as two cars were parked right in front of it. Had I been using my long lens I would have needed to back way up to get it all in the field of view and it would have had the two cars in the image. Yay for ultra wides!!

The following three images could have just as easily been photographed with a longer lens.

A mural in an alley.

The floor outside a set of apartments on the Southside.

The same alley, where mural meets the window.

Doors present their own special problem with a UW lens. Shooting them was easy enough but the distortion that comes along with a wide-angle lens often means that in post-processing either the top or bottom of the image is narrower. Luckily this can be fixed in Lightroom under the Transform tab in the Develop module. The Vertical tab evens it out pretty well.

This image is shot with the UW allows for less blur of the background.

This lens also allowed me to capture an entire side of an old hotel by just standing on the opposite sidewalk. You can see the distortion, though. I straightened the roof of the building in Lightroom but the lower light line on the building that goes through the trees is off-kilter.

I just liked this shot.

If you got out shooting, do it safely. Wear a mask, keep your distance and bring hand sanitizer in case you have to touch a crosswalk button! Stay safe out there! And hopefully, in the not too distant future, we’ll see each other again on an Arizona PhotoScapes workshop!

Happy shooting!