Thursday 13 February 2014

Photography: Don't you own a camera?

Up on the wall of a camera shop I used to visit was a cartoon. It was an artist with canvas and paints brushing into life  this magnificent mountain view panorama. Beside the artist was a small boy with a Nikon. He looked at the artist and asked: "Don't you own a camera?"

As a photographer that made me laugh! A lot!

Being a "visual" person, I see pictures everywhere. Actually drives me mad as I argue with myself if it is worth stopping to capture them as i go about my day either with a camera or iPhone. You see like that young boy in the Bruce Willis movie.. "I see pictures everywhere."  And if I was a painter.. well I would not have enough time to paint everything I see.

Lucky I do have a camera.

Well actually 11 if I don't count the iPhone!

It's the creativity thing I guess. It is more alive in some of us than others.. and then again it varies so much. Take Blue Poles for example. I have looked at it and other works of "modern art" and I have to say I just don't get it!

None of it!

It looks like an accident in a paint factory to me!

But then I look at some hills and… well let me explain.

Last Saturday evening my mate Ian and I rode our bikes up to Mt Nebo at sunset. All the way up the mountain, I could catch glimpses to my right of the hills in the Samford Valley below me being lit by the last rays of sunlight. And the low angle, cross lighting brought out all of the detail of those hills. Now I have seen those hills many times in my lifetime.. but never before like this. They came alive for me.

And did I have a decent camera with the right lens with me.. of course not! And if I had of photographed them. would it be a creative shot? I mean God's own light illuminated the view.. so the only creativity I could introduce would be variations of exposure, contrast and framing.

But having said that, this view (and others in the past) really got my creativity mojo going!

And that was good!

Because.. I had to photograph a roof this week.

A flat metal roof.. and it had to be done in the morning.. as it was a "product" shot, not an art piece .. so good hard light was on order. (Combined with some blue skies.. we hoped)

A few days later and I am standing on a roof of a huge shopping mall with views of the Pacific Ocean looking at all of this metal.

Where is the picture?

Where is the hero shot?

Well as it turned out I managed to find a few.. here is one of them.

Only walk on the walk way.. or the shoppers will get a surprise!

And the thing about this image from a series of pictures I took is this: While they may look boring to you (as Blue Poles is to me) they really ring my bells! Even Debra was impressed.. and she takes some impressing I can tell you.

And… as I stood on that roof and surveyed an acre or two of metal roof panels.. the images just "came" to me.

They just appeared in my head I guess.

And then the camera recorded them.

I have no idea where these pictures come from.. but for me.. they come all the time!

It is obvious that I would have no time to paint them all!

So it is just  as well I do own a camera…. or 11!