Sunday 9 February 2014

A Daily Photograph - The walk to work

Sounds exciting :)

A pathway between the town hospital and a school on a wet morning.


But I do walk to my place of gainful employment two days a week. This last week I had taken my reserve camera (a cheap and nasty Samsung compact), which I used before the one I have now. Not that it doesn't work too well or that is is really nasty, but I have graduated to a camera with a lot more options and a real optical zoom. OK, not really professional class but it works for me and I get on with it.

But I digress, this idea of a picture-a-day is not going to be as easy as I thought. When going on a day out, or taking shots of a memorable occasion, it is easy to take lots of shots and choose a selection of the best for posterity. In fact that is the way that most great art, whichever genre, is created. The poet or songwriter, the painter or photographer will all create far more than they keep for their portfolio. The not-so-good is thrown away, or at least put away at the back of a proverbiaal shelf.

This is not because they are not good enough, but the creation of every great piece of art is helped by lots of middle-of-the-road pieces. Even the most prolific artist makes a few "rasberries".

On one of the trees, I saw this pidgeon. The branches make a lovely abstract design


So, what do you do for this project. On an ordinary day, with nothing particular in mind how do you select a quick shot for your "one" for today. After all you can't (or at least I can't) find stunning subjects every time.

A recently erected incinerator chimney-stack, looking in the opposite direction

For the first few, which I posted elsewhere, I wrote about something that the photograph reminded me about. For example:-
  1. A shot of the road outside my front door reminded me of traffic accidents which happened over the years we had lived here, including a fatal aaccident right outside our house.
  2. A photo of the pub at the end of the road gave me a story about how pubs were changing into restaurants or grills to survive in todays world
  3. A shot of a crocus with two flowering stems, which I had never seen before, gave me an excuse to write about this beautiful plant and its family.
But after only a short while I seem to be running dry. I can't believe that I can't find something to say about any photo, so I will be carrying on with the project for a while longer. In actual fact I seem to have found quite a lot to say on the subject of creativity if I think about it, set off by this batch of ordinary photos - so maybe there is hope yet.

By the way, have you read the article I wrote entitled, "Is all photography art?". In which I posed the question, "what makes a photograph a work of art?". What are your thoughts on this subject?

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