Pop...pop...popsicle. Ice...ice...icicle. Test...test...testing 123. The font is acceptable, creative juices are flowing, nerves are shot, let the blogging commence!
Welcome to my blog!
If you have ever visited the Garden Route, you'll know that few places can compare in terms of beauty, colour, solitude and wandering around looking for something to do and managing to enjoy it all the same. These conditions are perfect for the wannabe photographer, like myself. This blog will cover my experiences, lessons learned and wisdom gained in my effort to become a sought-after photographer.
I've decided not to share with you, the reader, my explanation on what I think a photograph is, or rather, a good photograph. My reason? I don't really care what it is. You either like a picture, or you don't. We all remember the picture of the starving Sudanese child with the vulture. In terms of composition, it was a good photo, so I've heard, but the story it told was what made it as famous as it is. The effect it had was another story. No-one wanted to see it, but no-one could turn away from it. I hated the day I saw that photo. To me, it felt unnecessary that the world had to be told in such a harrowing manner of the horror that was happening in Africa. Truth be told, it got the job done.
OK, now I'm going to go back and 'bend' my previous statement of my idea of a good photograph. Instead, I'll tell you about certain things that I enjoy in a photograph..
Colour. Detail. Lines. Emotion. A colorful photograph grabs my attention and I appreciate the smaller details that would otherwise go unnoticed. Sunsets, sunrises, rainbows, storm-filled skies, these pictures hold those qualities and I enjoy shooting scenes of that nature. Occassionally, there might only be a certain colour that appeals to me, such as a birds wings, a tree's leaves or especially, the eyes of young children. Children have the best expressions and their eyes tell us stories that cannot be found in any book. The same concept applies to my garden boy. His ragged face, etched with wrinkles and other weather-beaten marks surrounds his eyes that constantly smile and could very well have fire dancing in the centre.
I accompanied my daughter on a walk through Bracken Nature Reserve once and we discovered an old abandoned warehouse. Curiousity got the better of both of us and we entered the dark and dusty building. It contained the remnants of old filing boxes, desks, phone books and fire fighting equipment. I watched as Cailin (that's my little girls name) walked further on and she went in to a room with a single ray of light piercing the darkness. As I followed, she was looking up to the ceiling and the scene in front was as good as ever to take a photo. The ray of sunshine was illuminating her awed face, the dust in the air gave the room an atmosphere of a completely magical feel, the chaos of the litter and surrounding junk was everywhere, in short, it was like looking at her and thinking, my child, you've just found another entrance to Narnia! As fate would have it, Narnia's other entrance is so magical, it makes people forget to take their camera along. I learned two important lessons that day. If you want to take better shots, TAKE YOUR CAMERA WITH EVERYWHERE. My second lesson was how to kick myself in the back of the head, standing straight up.
Maybe there is one quality in a photo that I really want. I want to feel excited when I see it, every time I look at it. I have taken several photographs of a varied nature, and these several photo's stand out as my favourite because they envoke an emotion, a memory long forgotten or a smile to an otherwise dull day. A photograph has the ability to make a person remember something, happy or bad, and transform the persons new outlook on the subject. Perhaps we remember that nauseating house we lived in, that cruddy road we travelled on our way to school, that horrible gate that was always so rusty and cold. We, as humans, have the capacity to turn those bad memories into something positive and reinforce our minds in to becoming better, more skilled and less sorrowful beings. We want a photo that can be strategically placed anywhere, home, work, school, the gym, the tool shed, that other room where you keep the kitty litter, and we want to feel empowered by THAT photo.
That is of course my other aim during the course of my blogging, to present a set of photographs that will hopefully have this effect on you. No person on earth will ever win the 'Everyone loves that photo" contest, but I will certainly attempt to inspire and motivate as many fellow human beings as possible, with the aid of my imagination and my camera.
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