I'll wager it is a low number. A very low number, unless you have a home studio or the like. Most of us shoot while out and about, either because we have gone out to take photos, or have taken photos while we are out (there is a significant difference, but more of that another day). The interesting thing about this thought experiment is that it doesn't matter where you live - you could be in the centre of the most fascinating metropolis on the planet, you could open your front door onto the Grand Canal in Venice, or you could be in the midst of the moors - habituation gets you every time.
Our Wikipedia friends define habituation as "...a form of learning in which an organism decreases or ceases to respond to a stimulus after repeated presentations". You can't fight it - it happens to us all. It is the same phenomenon that partly drives addictions - that quest for an ever-greater "high", whether that be an armful of heroin or a new camera (Gear Acquisition Syndrome or "GAS" is real, and causes considerable wallet pain.) In context of where we live, we stop seeing our immediate environs and treat them as part of our life furniture.
So here's thought experiment number 2. How often do you actually walk out past the end of your drive or your front gate? Many of us - though admittedly not all - can actually say seldom, because we get into the car parked on said drive and motor off to our destination. It's convenient, easy and in many respects it isolates and insulates us from our immediate surroundings - we only ever see the next road and the road after that through our windscreens, never through our viewfinders. Try this - how far away from home are you after five minutes behind the wheel of your car? Two miles? Three? How long would it take you to walk the same distance? Half an hour? An hour? The modern car is a wonderous thing, but like many other "advances" it detracts from our perception of the world immediately around us.
End of the road...
I recently spent a week or so unable to drive, following some minor surgery. I was restricted to sitting at home, or going out for a walk with a camera; the latter won. I have lived in the same area for going on 15 years now, but with a fresh eye and a narrowed horizon I saw more in that week than I have in the seven hundred and fifty-odd that preceded it.
My operation also forced a double-whammy on me. It was to my right shoulder, so I could neither carry any great weight, nor hold a heavy camera to my face for any length of time. I was thus forced by circumstance to "travel light". In order to do so I chose to use a Fujifilm X-M1 mounted with a Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens. Even with a handgrip and a thumb-rest attached, this combination tips the scales at very little more than 500 of those modern gram things. With an APS-C sensor in a tiny body, Fuji have reduced functionality from their more upmarket models but not by any means the quality of output. Equally, the 27mm, with a focal length equivalent of a very useful 40-41mm is not only a good match but an under-rated and handy lens reminiscent of the 40mm Summicron from Leica and the 40mm Nokton from Voigtlander. The lens and body combined brings back happy memories of using an Olympus Trip - and that is praise indeed.
The Whovians will enjoy this one:
...and this
I have bought an X-M1 twice, as it happens. First of all as a backup to my X-E1 then when I acquired an X-T1 and replaced the X-E1 with an X-Pro1 three X mount bodies seemed a little extravagant, so I sold it on. Then more recently I realised that a small, lightweight but capable backup to whichever of the X-Pro and X-T I was carrying as my main kit did in fact make sense, so...
What has surprised me - although it shouldn't if I had thought about it - is what a good little setup this is for street photography. The 55.5 degree angle of view is ideal for urban action and set to manual focus, zone-focussed to 7-10 feet at f8 or thereabouts, the X-M1 and 27mm combination is a good 'un. For years I have used Leica M and LTM for such endeavors, with a focal length between 35 and 50mm, ISO 400 film and Sunny-16 as my guide and I am happy to say that I can use the Fuji in the same basic way to good effect.
Pardon?
One advantage that I hadn't expected comes in the form of the "fly by wire" focussing of the 27mm. Not only can I opt to have it turn the same way as my Leicas, but I have "discovered" (durr...) that turning the camera off and on does not effect the focal distance set; this is a boon to someone like me who drops the camera back into a bag and out of sight every so often. Where it loses out is that I can't adjust focus by feel as I could with my Leicas before I brought them to my eye, particularly with those lenses with focus tabs like the old 5cm Elmars.
Cast off those earthly underpants...
Anyway, enough of the kit chat. The key point of today's "sermon" is that we are frequently exhorted to "broaden our horizons", seek new life and new civilisations (sorry, couldn't resist) and get out there to take our photos. The reality is that sometimes, just sometimes, it can give you more of a creative kick to narrow those horizons down to just the places you can easily walk to from home, with one small, lightweight camera and a single focal length lens.
Try it - you may be surprised...
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