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Writer's pictureStephen Lang

The Market Photographer’s Battle: Stubborn Traders, Angry Lightroom, and the Curse of a New Camera


 

There’s nothing quite like the excitement of a bustling local market. The colours, the textures, the people… It’s a paradise for photographers like me. Or so I thought. What I didn’t account for was a small army of traders who apparently missed the memo that they’re in public, in a place where people do things like take photos of their epic displays of radishes. And then there’s Lightroom, who insists I need to update it again just to open the RAW files from my shiny new camera. Spoiler: I haven’t thrown the camera out the window yet, but we’re getting close.

 

Step 1: The Market Showdown

 

So, there I am, Nikon Z 6III in hand, wandering through the market like some kind of urban artist—you know the type. I’m scouting for those perfect shots: bright veggies, artisan breads, and a butcher who looks like he’s out of a Norman Rockwell painting. It’s going great, right up until I take my first shot and immediately hear, “Oi, mate! No pictures!” from a guy selling olives like they’re state secrets.

 

Naturally, I ignore him, because I’m an artist, and he’s just a man with olives. I’m not photographing him, I’m capturing the essence of the moment, the soul of the marketplace. Of course, he doesn’t care about the “soul of the marketplace”—he cares about the fact that he looks like he hasn’t slept since the ’90s and doesn’t want to be immortalised on my SD card. [technical note, it is a CF type B card, have yourself a laugh and Google it 😊]

 

Cue more shouting.

 

At this point, I’m dodging around stands like I’m on some covert photography mission, snapping shots between crates of tomatoes while trying to avoid a verbal lashing from a woman who’s threatening to throw a zucchini at me if I don’t stop. The nerve! Does she not understand that her organically grown produce is Instagram gold?

 

Step 2: Triumph (Sort Of)

 

After weaving my way through the market like a paparazzo in witness protection, I finally feel like I’ve got the shots I need. The traders may have won the battle of “no photos,” but I’ve won the war. Sure, I’ve taken about 50 photos while dodging actual vegetables being hurled in my direction, but art has a price, and sometimes that price is being chased out of a market by an angry cheese vendor.

 

Feeling victorious, I head home to edit my masterpieces. This is going to be great, I think, dreaming of all the gorgeous colours I’ll bring to life in Lightroom.

 

Step 3: Lightroom Betrayal

 

And then I plug in the camera. Excitedly, I open Lightroom to start editing my freshly captured raw files, but instead of seeing my glorious photos, I’m greeted with the absolute horror of a message: “This version of Lightroom does not support RAW files from the Nikon Z 6III. Please update.”

 

Now, I’ve been here before, but somehow I’d forgotten about the endless cycle of new camera hell. Of course, Adobe wants me to upgrade, but have I the patience for another round of “Your subscription needs renewal,” followed by a 200000GB download that only takes 45 minutes because I decided to upgrade right in the middle of prime internet usage hours? Absolutely not.

 

But what choice do I have? The photos are sitting there, unedited, like the digital equivalent of your laundry pile after a particularly adventurous weekend. Fine, I’ll upgrade. Of course, this involves the usual dance of “Where’s my password?” followed by “Has this Terms of Service agreement always been this long?” and then “Why is this update taking an hour?”

 

Step 4: Editing Trauma

 

At last, the upgrade completes. I launch Lightroom, import my RAW files, and… oh. My. God. Remember how I said I was capturing “art”? Apparently, what I was actually capturing was overexposed, poorly framed chaos. There are close-ups of radishes I swear I didn’t even aim at, and somehow I’ve managed to get a candid shot of a guy’s elbow that I distinctly remember avoiding.

 

No amount of slider tweaking will save these images. Highlights? Blown out. Shadows? Nonexistent. Composition? About as balanced as me trying to dodge another angry vendor in a narrow alley. Lightroom now offers me all the editing power in the world, but it turns out what I really needed was a restraining order from myself and that “just one more YouTube tutorial” curse.

 

Step 5: Acceptance (And Maybe A Little Bit of Defeat)

 

After two hours of adjusting every knob Lightroom has to offer, I’ve come to terms with the reality that maybe I wasn’t meant to be the Henri Cartier-Bresson of the market scene. Maybe my artistic vision was clouded by a near-death-by-zucchini experience.

 

But more importantly, I’ve realised that my shiny new Nikon Z 6III and I are going to have to come to an understanding: I will continue to take photos, and it will continue to create RAW files that are too advanced for whatever version of software I happen to be using. This is the circle of (photography) life.

 

So, the next time I get yelled at by a trader for taking a photo of their artisanal kale, I’ll remember two things: 1) I’m going to keep taking the photo, and 2) Lightroom will punish me for it later.


 

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