“One local photographer,” Koegel explains, “he was sort of my
mentor, and I still look up to him now, he said to me that once
he’s taken a picture, he loses interest instantly. And he does that
because for him it’s all about the experience, it’s not about the
picture. It took me a while to feel the same way, to even understand
what he meant. If I go somewhere for a week and I come back
with no picture that I like but I enjoyed myself on the trip, that’s
OK. The experience is even more important than the picture. Of
course, it’s great if I have a good experience and I come back with
pictures, that’s what we strive to do. But it doesn’t always work.”
Born in Germany, Koegel relocated to Canada to study eco-
nomics more than 20 years ago. He had already found photog-
raphy when he entered college but hadn’t seriously consideredSenja, Norway. “When people see me with this camera,
they always say, ‘Well, it must be so difficult to use it, all these
features on it and all that.’ Quite honestly, it’s one of the
simplest cameras to use. And a joy in the straightforwardness.
Sure, it’s slow, but I really appreciate slow. I like a slow
workflow. And if you do landscape photography, it’s not like
photojournalism where you need to be quick. I can afford to
take some time, that’s fine. And that makes me enjoy being in
the outdoors and setting up the camera. I’ll be at a location
for four hours walking around trying different compositions.
So really a camera that isn’t the world’s fastest autofocus, I
couldn’t care less. It’s actually enjoyable if it takes a little bit of
time because then you go through it methodically.”
³ Phase One IQ4 150 Achromatic with Phase One XF camera,
75mm lens. Exposure: 1/125 sec., ƒ/5.6, ISO 800
48 Outdoor Photographer outdoorphotographer.com