Recently I injured my arm. At first it was just a little injury where I pulled my arm, but doing some DIY in the garden, a sledgehammer had the better of me, and my pulled arm made a snapping sound inside it. I’ve damaged the muscles in my right arm, and as such it has had a serious affect on my photography. Here is how it’s made me rethink my everyday photography.
“Understanding The Pain”
While I can freely move my arm around, straightening it out sends shooting pains through my arm. The main issue though is that I cannot put much pressure on my arm, I find it difficult to close my fist and hold anything, and the arm is just weak and painful when I try to do anything with it.
In very short bursts I can raise my arm with something lightweight in it (hence why I only took my mobile phone on a recent wildlife deer hunt in the countryside) but why longer, even when I support the camera with a strap (such as my visit to the fair for some street photography with the Nikon ZF) and it seriously affects my arm for hours, or days after.
“Rethink Of Photography”
Of course, this injury means that for upcoming photography events and work I need to rethink the way I’m currently doing things. I did not realise just how difficult things would be with such a simple injury, and long term I need to rest the arm as much as possible.
I have a planned bird and wildlife shoot in the coming week taking a group out into the forests and ponds, this is course will mean using my Tamron 150-500mm lens. I’ve been thinking of ways to attach the straps to the lens to make things easier and also use a tripod. I will experiment with this in the coming days. After using the Nikon ZF yesterday with the tiny Viltrox 28mm and fully strapped up to make it comfortable, I was still in agony.
Of course, my fallback plan is to just use my Google Pixel 11 again. I know a lot of people dismiss mobile phones as not “photography”, but sometimes needs must.
For any jobs coming up while my arm is this way, I know I can put all my gear down safely somewhere, and use my left arm as much as possible. It’s not perfect, but in controlled environments it MAY be a little bit easier (again, just in theory, time will tell).
“Rest In Time”
As much as I don’t want to, I think I will just have to rest up my arm and give it time. It won’t mean missing out on photography, it’ll just mean missing out on using real cameras in photography.
It may actually give me chance to use things like my binoculars more, and just absorb the atmosphere of whatever I’m up to and wherever I am.
It could also be an opportunity to do some landscape photography, where a tripod will be used and I won’t need to do much lifting or moving off my arm.
Whatever happens, stay tuned and follow my journey.
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My name is Mark G Adams and I run Photography By Mark G Adams. I am a professional photographer from South Wales, shooting weddings, events and portraits as well as running meets and workshops. For fun I like to shoot landscapes, wildlife and occasionally do street photography. Enjoy my website as I share my knowledge learned over decades of working and having fun in photography. Feel free to like, comment and subscribe!
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