Taking a walk without my main tool

Kevin Ho
Jan 11, 2019
3 min read

So yesterday I had a whole day to myself, so I decided to go on one of my random trips to Newcastle,to have a wonder and maybe pick a few things up in the Jan sales. While I normally only take a hour or two just walking around the shops, I opted to go and start in Gateshead first to head down to the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. I'ts been nearly six months since I made the trek to this wonderful place of art, so I thought I might as well stop by while on the way to Newcastle. While on the Metro heading to Gateshead, I also decided to also do a little bit of street shooting, but not with the main camera. Recently just before Christmas I treated myself to a new mobile handset, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. Normally I would never think of using a camera phone as a tool, since I always use a main camera body which I have on me all the time. But after hearing all the waiving reviews about the triple camera setup on the back of the phone, I decided to not waste the opportunity and just use the phone to photograph my journey to the Baltic and Newcastle.

Now I'm not gonna go into a bore and explain the tech side of the phone, but one I thing I def noticed about using the triple camera setup, is that it really useful having both a wide angle and telephoto lens in one phone. I found myself switching both modes to find the best composition and angles. One thing I also noticed while walking around with a phone and not a camera is that you hardly get any attention from people around you. You still get the odd look, but no where near as much as if I was using a BIG camera body with a massive lens. I slowly took my time capturing things where most people would normally walk past and not even give glance. Patterns, strange sights and just something different.

After already capturing a few dozen photos walking though Gateshead, I finally made it to the Baltic hitting on the exact time it opens it doors at 10am. Now I'm not a super fancy arty person, but I do like seeing the all the different exhibits and try and to draw some form of inspiration from them. Even through I do find some of the exhibits a little too 'abstract' to the point where I don't actually know what I'm looking at, I still try to understand the artists work and even take my time reading each descriptions next to each piece. First thing I do when arrive at the Baltic is to take the lift to the 5th Floor where you have a room called the viewing box where you have a large view overseeing the River Tyne. Most people would take the standard photo of the Tyne, but I wanted to try a different view.

There was also another viewing terrace on the next floor down, where you go outside of the building like a balcony, like before I went for another angle

So after walking around the two main exhibits, I decided to continue my journey towards Newcastle. On the way, crossing the Millennium bridge and walking along side the Quayside I captured a few more images up Dean Street.

At this point, I was just about walking over an hour since starting in Gateshead. So my next stop I went for an early lunch at a new opened Taco Bell, in Newcastle city center. For the money which it was pretty decent, but I hardly ever Mexican food so my comparison was little to none. After that pretty filling lunch, I captured my last few photos for the day. Safe to say I was actually quite impressed with the quality of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. I do sometimes find that the images can be a little over-sharpened by the phone itself. But overall, it does make me think how far cameras in phones have come, and it could get up to a point where I will find myself just leaving my main camera at home.