#80 – October 11, 2021

 

Hello!

Here’s one of R from August.

I typically have around fifteen to twenty photographs sitting in my “Candidates” folder ready to be published to this blog. It means I have around two weeks of images ready to use if I haven’t been able to take something worthwhile that day, which to be honest is most days. A good photographic adventure may lead to four or even five images suitable to publish which all get edited and then placed in the aforementioned location.

I publish a lot of photographs of R and I’m very conscious of this. It’s just that she’s available and most of the time willing. Or at least willing to stand still for the short time it takes me to take the photo thus allowing her to continue on with her life.

One part of me hopes that the constant stream of R in my stream doesn’t put people off visiting. The other part of me says “Bugger it, play to your strengths!” and for me, that is candid portrait photography. Obviously, being a wedding photographer requires me to pose and direct my couples (I prefer to direct) but all of my favourite photographs are the ones I’ve grabbed at a moments notice.

I still have a few photos from the last meander to share from when I took the iPhone 13 for a test, but looking at the Candidates folder, I wanted to start clearing some of the older worthy images. I also enjoy looking through the folder and removing the ones that no longer hold up compared to the rest.

Talking about this brings me to a question I’ve been asked honestly more times than I can adequately recall. So many times I’ve been asked by friends, family, colleagues, people who know me on social media “Is this is a good photo?” I understand and am appreciative that they hold me and my opinion to some esteem to even ask me, but the conversation always goes the same way:

Them: “Is this a good photo?”
Me: “Do you like it?”
Them: “Umm, yes. I like it. But I want to know if it’s a good photo.”
Me: “If you like it, it’s a good photo”.

The only time you ever need to please someone else with a photograph is when they are paying you. Then you can worry over whether it’s a “good photo” or not. And on that point, you have to remember that photography is such a subjective thing that you could truly love a photograph and every other person who sees it may say “I don’t get it?”. 

There is a lot of the photographer’s emotion tied up with every click of the shutter button. It’s for this exact reason I leave at least a week before editing wedding photos. I need to go through and select which photographs will be included without any of the emotions included when taking them. Many times, a photograph I’ve been really excited about on the day will not make it through to the final presentation upon proper reflection later. 

Even though I set up this blog to help me regain the love of taking photographs purely for myself, I’m still very conscious of what I publish. I still want the photographs to be appreciated by the people who visit.

I guess I still have a little bit of work to do on the “photographing for myself” part of the experiment.

Last night I went and grabbed my typical Monday night pizza and then went to the Factory for the first time in exactly thirteen weeks. The factory is a … um …. factory that houses our custom-built rehearsal room. Reasonably soundproof with lighting, heating and cooling, it’s one of my favourite places to be. The best parts are that my drums live there meaning I do not have to set up and pack up and that I am very lucky to have keys to the factory and the room.

I left two hours later feeling very tired, a little sore but mentally so much happier and focussed. The depressing part was that some of the stuff I was working on was sounding way better than it had thirteen weeks ago right from the beginning! I’m not sure what that says about my lack of practice? 

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading, I really appreciate your time and interest. Talk to you soon. Stay safe.

Richard

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