Habits made over hundreds of thousands of photos are hard to break. I’ve often shot ultra-wide for urban landscapes and 35mm for street photography. But, I’m slowly creeping up the zoom range — I shot these at 50 to 135mm. These are my exploration of Waikiki texture, zoomed in and isolated.

While I usually like black and whites for pattern and texture, I made an exception for my first photo. I was attracted to the repeating pattern, of course. But the golden, early morning sun had not reached the last two columns of balconies. Something only appreciated in color. Shot at 135mm.

I wanted to combine the two dominant textural entities. The palm trees and the ubiquitous hotel balconies in this overbuilt paradise. Nature and the man-made. My first attempt was to frame the perimeter with palm leaf patterns. Shot at 90mm.

Then I found this lone man, framed between two palms. He’s the entity that breaks the repeating pattern. It works well, zoomed in at 135mm.

But surprisingly, the image also works at 50mm. The same man and the same pattern, only on a grander scale.

One of my goals of Photo Sketchbook Collection is an exploration of composition, particularly with telephoto. The Panasonic ZS50 has a 24 – 720mm equivalent zoom for maximum flexibility. In reality, many of my Sketchbook photos still land within the 24 – 35mm compositional prison that I’ve built over the years.

I’m trying to break free.

Part of my Photo Sketchbook Collection.