caroline price

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a girl obsessed with time

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The Ghost of Christmas that I Didn’t Know I Needed

March 2, 2026

For Christmas, Jared gave me some spending money, with the only condition that I buy things that would bring me joy.

One of the thing I bought was the Schneider-Kreuznach Min/Mag pictured here. I bought it thinking it would adapt to either my Cinelux 85mm or my Cinelux 37.5mm, both ways, making it a useful tool.

And when it arrived, I was crestfallen to realize that the 85mm filter threads were dented.

But, not to be deterred, I ordered a Neewer lens vise. So when the lens vise arrived, I went at it, determined to be able to screw on the Min/Mag.

And, I got the lens filters successfully re-shaped, and went at screwing on the Min/Mag on the Mag side.

And, I was ecstatic to see the results.

But then I went to screw the Min/Mag off. Stuck.

Irreparably, nothing-works-because-Jared-and-I-have-tried-everything, stuck.

There were tears. I was soooooo upset. There were more tears. There was anger, because then I saw that Jared had the 85mm lens itself taken apart.

Turns out, the dented part was a lens hood for the 85mm, with the logo on it. a lens hood that is every bit the material of the rest of the structure of the lens barrel, meaning there is no cutting it off the Min/Mag.

And then, Christmas faded, and the Min/Mag with its problems, resigned, went into the dehumidifier cabinet.

And then comes this past week, with the job falling through, and I resorted to what I always want to do when these things happen: I started daydreaming about camera and lens gear.

But today, I had a renewed resolve. The Min/Mag went into the freezer for 30 minute with a dehumidifier pack, in two baggies.

No dice– that lens hood is not coming off.

But then, I remembered the screw. And I wondered: what would it look like if I used the glass from the Min side on the lenses?

The Min side has its own version of a lens hood, since the glass is on the lens side of the barrel.

The Super Cinelux 37.5mm is a no-go. Doesn’t work– has enough vignetting from the barrel that it isn’t worth the wide angle.

The 85mm though? I gasped when I saw what it could do:

The Min on the 85mm acts as a focal reducer and slight wide-angle teleconverter, giving me absolutely 99% of what the 85mm could do on the GFX 50sII. It gives me back the 60-70mm perspective that the 85mm had on the GFX.

Would I like the Min/Mag to be completely functional? Of course. I was convinced that it was the Mag side that I would want the most.

But I am thrilled to have stumbled on this serendipitous turn of gear events.

It feels like Christmas all over again today, and literally all it cost me was going out to the garage to get one of Jared’s electronics screwdrivers.

The setup looks ridiculous, admittedly, for a 60-70mm equivalent setup on the X-S20, but I care not. one. bit:

So super excited. I’d given up working with the Cinelux line since Christmas in the fallout of all this, along with the sale of the GFX itself, but now I am thrilled I can have 99% of the GFX look with not spending another single dime on gear.
So Long GFX, It’s Been Real

January 9, 2026

Like the title says.

Last week I got the M65 to FX adapter I needed to be able to adapt the Cinelux lenses to my Fujifilm X-S20. And the 37.5mm focuses like a dream now that I have the proper adapter.

And, I played around some more with my Minolta lenses.

And I got to thinking that I really missed that beautiful XF 50mm f1 lens I sold a little over 4 years ago to be able to afford the GFX 50S II camera to begin with.

And common sense began to really get the better of me in knowing that really it’s going to be quite some time before I can really afford to buy the XF 70-300mm lens that I really wanted to be able to do bird and other wildlife photography with the X-S20.

And since I could still make yummy portraits with the Cinelux lenses (that arguably have a better look), and since I could do 99% of the things I wanted with the X-S20, I started to question the wisdom of hanging onto the GFX camera knowing it had served faithfully for 4 years but was a heavy camera.

And, I did some heavy comparison shots with both the Cinelux and the Minolta lenses.

Turns out, if I up the denoise tool and the clarity and the sharpness and the shadows in Lightroom, there’s an awful lot of questions about which lens shot what with what camera.

And so, the GFX went to KEH yesterday, and I came home with the XF 50mm f1, the 70-300mm that I wanted, and a little extra grocery money for the month.

The cat in the photo above is not our cat. This is a cat that belongs to some random unknown neighbor, a cat that has claimed our yard as its own when our dogs are not out in the yard to terrorize it. It’s outside in our yard a lot when I go out there or when I’m backing the car out of the driveway. Today it got to be a test subject since I couldn’t quickly spot any birds before the rain started.

And, I won’t lie: I will miss the medium format camera. And I won’t lie even more because it’s true that I will miss the self-imposed “status” that came along with shooting medium format even if it was a status that only I recognized. APS-C just doesn’t have the same ring.

But when 99% of the look I love is achievable with the camera that is more fun to shoot with…..there’s an awful lot to be said about that. Especially when it is far easier to achieve focus, especially when the focus is faster on the autofocus lenses, especially when the whole setup is smaller and lighter, and especially since I can dictate the direction of whatever business I may or may not have.

And probably most importantly, especially when the itch to upgrade happens and it won’t cost another $4,000 or more to do so next time.

So, that’s been much of the labor of this week. Reining in is not easy, but sometimes it is necessary. I have been in a realism and a “buy it once” sort of mindset since Christmas, and it was time to realize that the tools I had in my photography arsenal were not exactly serving me as best they could.

Besides, that yummy jute purse I made and carry around is an awful lot lighter when it’s carrying around X Series gear than it was with the GFX stuff. And it’s a heavy purse to begin with.
On Foresight and Being a Self-Proclaimed Armchair Heritage-Modern Strategist

January 2, 2026

So this post is going to have a tad bit of an indignant tone.

Tonight, I took these frames to get new progressive, Transitions lenses:

And you know what? I bought these frames from Zeelool on July 31, 2021.

At the time, I just thought they looked cool. These are Zeelool’s Menin frames and they have since been discontinued. I don’t know why they were discontinued, and I don’t know when.

What I do know is that when I bought them, my kids thought they looked crazy. At the time, I was bald by choice, which didn’t help the “crazy” look.

But I had no idea at the time that by late 2025 and early 2026, asymmetrical and geometric frames would be trendsetting.

In 2021, I just knew they looked cool.

Same thing with mirrorless cameras.

In 2011, I wanted an interchangeable lens camera to be able to take nice pictures for a blog. I wanted to be a “Mommy Blogger.” Jared told me if I’d wait till Christmas, he’d buy me a DSLR for Christmas.

I was in Best Buy by myself one night, and I saw this display with a new kind of camera, and it was a Sony Alpha NEX 5N— a new kind of camera they were calling “mirrorless….” I hardly even knew that mirrors at the time were an integral part of the build of a DSLR.

I came home with the Sony Alpha NEX 5N. That was November of 2011. I didn’t wait for Christmas.

And that first year with that camera: I remember camping with church and there was someone who was really into photography at the time on that camping trip in 2012. And I remember the sort of side-eye-rolls my little powerhouse got. Surely it couldn’t be a serious tool for serious work.

To her credit, the documentary photography instructor at Emory in summer 2012 was actually one of the first affirming folks that said I’d made a good choice: all she cared about was that I could control my camera manually, which she helped me figure out that indeed, I very well could.

By 2013, I was standing in the kitchen at Carrollton Presbyterian Church while my friend was getting Wednesday night dinner ready, and I vividly remember feeling sheepish and very meek about it, but I told her, “I’m pretty sure mirrorless cameras are the future,” and she looked at me like I was crazy.

And by 2013, I was regularly adapting vintage lenses to that Sony Alpha NEX 5N camera. I could sometimes find adapters, but they were not good. Often, they arrived with loose lens mounts. Good adapters were so hard to find that I more than once took apart a Miranda camera or a Minolta camera so that I could have a sturdier lens mount for a cheap adapter, taking apart the adapter, too.

Because by 2013 I knew that the yumminess that comes with vintage lenses was worth something.

In 2025, vintage filters are a ubiquitous part of cell phone culture.

And now, in 2026, I walked into Costco tonight with 2 French pins holding my hair, pins that arrived not from a glitzy Ulta display but in a plain box as they are sold in Europe and elsewhere, and I was literally the only person I saw with my hair up that way. I saw people with elastics and clips, but not a single other French pin in the store. Apparently they are reserved for special occasion up-do’s in the United States.

And I have zero idea why because they are so dang practical: They do not leave crimps in your hair when you take it back down again, and it literally takes the time it takes me to put my hair in an elastic messy bun to do the same with 2 French pins. And you don’t have to buy a million of them. The ones I bought will last the rest of my life probably.

And in being without a dedicated job for so long, I’m suddenly realized that I’ve developed my own sacred ritual over the years, in a million different ways that I don’t even think to write about because it’s so ordinary to me probably: Wearing hair hardware that would have been familiar to my great-grandmother in 1916 and yet getting ready to wear glasses that won’t be out of place in 2027, carrying around camera gear from the 1970s that performs fantastically on my 2023-model GFX and X Series Fujifilm cameras….. I’m finally figuring out that my brain just works in a way that the conventional workplace simply is not ready for.

In 2011, the serious photographers of their day were not ready to hear that that they would be changing out the entirety of their gear systems in a decade or less.

And I know that I wrote about “buy it once” culture a few days ago and I am very well aware that I found the website “buymeonce.com” probably over 3 years ago at least; it’s been a bookmark on my Safari home screen for that long anyway. And I am very well aware that it is a growing movement now that I am only jumping on the bandwagon for as people are growing weary of fast fashion.

And in early 2026 even, there are plenty of people who are still not ready to hear either that it is indeed possible to self-engineer ethical parameters for AI life coaching from readily available platforms. And yet, I’m doing it daily with Gemini.

And yet, here we are. I’ve been on SSDI since 2011 because my brain needs more to do than the conventional workplace can find me to do in retail or admin assistant type jobs.

Anybody want to find me a job in trends forecasting?
security blanket camera

November 2, 2025

Here’s what I don’t talk about with my photography gear…

Probably half the time I have my gear out, I just hold it, sitting in my lap. Not for pictures…. It is my security blanket.

I did it last night at the Marina when I snapped the selfie with Jared, with the X-S20.

This morning on the way out the door to church, I knew I’d want to hold the GFX after we dropped Porter off at UGA this afternoon, so I threw it into my purse. So here it is, now in my lap as Jared drives us back home to Carrollton.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world with security blanket-type object.

It’s just that mine have doubled as professional and hobby-type tools at the same time.

I’m feeling fairly anxious this week. I stood up for my 18-23 year-old self on Thursday, and also my 45 year-old self as well.

And then I drove to Athens for my oldest.

And I spent a good portion of the weekend hiding. Because that is what I do.

And I’m probably going to spend some more time in the next few weeks hiding while I try to get my mental health back in some semblance of equilibrium.

I’ve lost my laundry routine since before October 20.

Dishes sit undone for days on end.

It’s been rough.

I’m determined to turn a corner, but for now, I hide.

And I hold my security blankets: my cameras.

Read more about me here.
the crash

October 7, 2025

One of the feet of my grandparents’ 1940s couch…the couch lives in our bedroom now, but this photo was taken as part of a series I did several years ago called One Hundred Sixteen.

Yeah.

I’ve given up cheese and bread and most processed foods. Most of the things I’ve survived on for the 46 years of my life.

So it stands to reason that when I get hungry, and let too much time go between meals, I’d get a little despondent.

Several years ago, probably in 2016 or so, I thought I was dying. I’d had radioactive iodine ablation therapy on my thyroid the year before, and my thyroid levels were not leveling out as they should have. And my calcium levels were high, and I felt terrible, and my endocrinologist was not sure there wasn’t something screwy going on with my pituitary gland….

And I took several of the photos I’d taken in the five years’ prior, and converted them all to black and white and made them into square formats, and made a photo book out of them, and called the project One Hundred Sixteen, related to our address at the time. And I had Ilford silver gelatin prints made of all the photos in the book…..I wanted my husband and kids to have the best of what I had done with the previous five years, in photos, things that my eye had captured over the years.

The photo above is one of those photos included in the book and prints.

And that is how we came to have a crap ton of silver gelatin prints of my early work around the house, and even more live in a drawer in our dining room now, just taking up space.

I don’t have the exif data from that file above, since it’s so heavily altered. But if I had to guess, I took that photo above with a Fuji X-T2 and probably the 56mm f1.2 lens or the 35mm f2 lens. Around that time period all I would have had was the 16mm, the 56mm, the 35mm f2, and the 90mm, all Fuji X Series native lenses. It was for sure either the Fuji X-T2 or the Fuji X-Pro 2 camera.

I laid down for a nap earlier this afternoon because I was tired, and when I woke up I was in an awful, teary state.

I sold off 4 GFX lenses and the second GFX 50sII body this summer, and now I deeply regret it.

If I had the second body, I could go around with both Cinelux lenses on.

If I had the 45-100mm and the 100-200mm lenses, I could better do wildlife photography.

But at the time, I had things I wanted to do and we sort of needed the money and well…. so they went.

And so my meltdown earlier today was about that, and was also about the fact that while nobody paying me doesn’t mean I’m not a photographer, I also realized what I have given up in closing down my business. Even if it cost massive amounts of money I never made with it.

I miss people asking me to take pictures of things, and I miss even more having the gear I had to be able to do so.

Now, arguably, the X-S20 is better for some of that than the GFX gear.

But once you have shot with a medium format camera….it’s hard to go back.

It’s sort of like people who have to downgrade lifestyle stuff.

And I have worked hard these past couple of weeks. Our house isn’t perfectly clean but it is better. The window coverings situation is certainly better, having a dedicated laundry day is better, Nancy is better, having the garage emptied out feels better…..

Having the garage empty means I can get back to my studio selfies. I should plan to do that in the next couple of days.

But then I got through with my pity party enough to go make myself my smoothie– almond milk, wild blueberries, spinach powder, and a banana– and two sips into my smoothie it hit me:

I was despondent because I was hungry.

HA.

Y’all, I am so used to processed foods and cheese and all the yummy goodness. But the things I am eating (today’s breakfast was late and it was almond flour crackers, decaf coffee with marine collagen, and walnut pieces, and I did allow myself a protein bar this morning)….. they metabolize faster. And take more preparation than just grabbing a string cheese and a protein bar, or some goat cheese and sunflower seeds……

*sigh*

I do feel better. I went to bed not depressed last night. It was nice to just know it was time to go to bed and not feel like the world was ending, or like someone was out to get me, a frequent feeling late at night.

And there is personal drama I don’t care to go into going on, both for me and for Jared, and there’s just a lot going on.

And I don’t feel particularly inspired to pick up my cameras, even if I pine away over gear I parted with.

It all feels manufactured and pointless. Jared takes me to the Marina and I sit there with the camera in my hand and remember, not even really seeing what is in front of me.

And honestly, the sunrise photos at the Marina and the duck pictures in the evening are boring at this point.

It’s time for a personal project. And a reckoning.