And here is a picture of Izumi with her camera. I think being in the street is the only resemblance to M Cartier-Bresson. But I was younger then and still had much to learn.

Now I tell you about how I met my new friend. Izumi has diligence, and I was reading all informations I could from Photokina and other sites on the internet for finding out if a camera that suits me is soon being born by a maker. Several times almost one seemed suitable but I would find out it does not have a viewfinder or shoot RAW or have changing lenses. These are things that it must have if you are on the streets looking for Decisive Moments like me.

The best one I read about is the new Fuji X100 as it has an interesting optical and electronic viewfinder all in one but it is not ready before some time next year and only has one fixed 35mm lens. So it is not right enough for testing the talents of Izumi.

So I talk to David about all the choices and what I decide is that the best is the Olympus PEN with electronic viewfinder that you can add to it and it has a big sensor (Four Thirds format) and many interesting lenses. When I looked at the photographs I have captured with the other camera I see that almost all of them are at full wide of 28mm or full zoom of 140mm (eqivs). And the E-PL1 vesion comes with a 14mm to 42mm lens (28mm to 84mm eqivs) which is not very fast (f/3.5) or as reachingful (3x rather than 5x) but will make for much happier daytime street photographing. Or 'candid' if you are Mr Jeff Carter.

And I find out that Panasonic has a very small 20mm lens and soon a 14mm one also which can make this camera look and feel very much like M Cartier-Bresson’s Leica. I like that. And the 20mm is f/1.7 so it can be interesting for night time photographing with 1600 or 3200 ASA. 

When I am decided I do not like to wait so we go to a camera shop that David knows and we buy one. My birthday hints must fall on rich ground, as the saying is said.

I also like the name PEN as it is like writing with a camera (I know - 'photo' and 'graphy') and a photograph is on paper same as writing in a book - and I hope lasts as long!

You can see in these happy photographs the strong early lighting that I like when it comes at a low angle into the shops and windows and along the streets. Having a proper viewfinder on my PEN makes me very happy to be framing these photographs exactly as I like them.

To be confessing, I do sometimes crop them into other formats but that is because they are telling me that is the best way for them to be happy photographs that we both like. And my PEN likes it too. I can feel it when I hold him to my eye and we both know that we are looking at the same photograph and we must not become excited together over this but remain calm like the stalking lioness in case we frighten the photograph away.

Sometimes I know the format I want when I take the photograph and other times I find a different format when I am processing the photographs on the computer because I am now watchful for such things to sometimes be, as I explained in a previous Diary.

I am also finding that because my PEN has a much bigger light-sensor than the little Pentax that I was using, I can sometimes make a happy photograph just from a part of the image that is still good quality to look at. I think the proving will come when I make big A3 or A2 prints for the exhibition (no, I do not forget). So that is something to look forward to seeing.

I must also tell you that some of the photographs on this page have been adjusted in Photoshop to give them a different look which I think more suits their emotional feeling. With The Blue Fig, above, I took out some of the colours so it was not as realistic as when I captured it because I thought that both the colours and the black and white did not make it as I saw it in my head when I was there.

And the photographs of the people in Enmore Park I made into contrastier black and white because I think they are happier photographs when I make them like so. And I think M Cartier-Bresson would approve of such doings. I must learn more about how to make the colours begone in Photoshop as there are many ways to do such a thing. I think it is all right to do this as it is using the tools that come to my hands, and I am not pretending to you that it is something that is not really on the street in front of me.

Jeff Carter joked to me that it is easy to put a camel in his photographs and viewers would not realise the untruth of it. But I think that if I put a camel in front of the Blue Fig Café or wandering down King Street then you would think Izumi was a very strange girl. Or walking in the footsteps of Salvador Dali these mornings rather than M Cartier-Bresson. But then in my other hand maybe you know Newtown and you would not think it strange at all.

I hope you like these photographs that my PEN and I capture. I shall have to ask other people if they can see differences between the photographs I make with the other camera and my PEN. But I can tell you that I am a happy girl with this camera and we are going to go exploring many streets together.

When I show the photographs here it is like you were there with us but you did not have to get up early to catch the light that I like. You are lucky for that but I am happy to do it for you.

Now I must stop here.

Thank you,

Izumi.