#171 – February 27, 2022 (58/365)

The PHOTOGRAPH:

In February, I am selecting the oldest black and white photo from my “Candidates” folder and if I still love it, posting that. If the love has gone, it gets deleted.

This image is from a series of photographs taken during a play date for my daughter and one of her school friends. The 105mm portrait lens came out specifically to challenge me as I was not planning on taking any portraits with it. I was looking for mundane things and trying to take a non-mundane photograph of them.

There’s nothing award winning about this photograph. Nothing at all. But I still love it because it shows my family (and a mother and daughter friends) going for an impromptu walk through a nature reserve that borders the park from the previous photos. I’ve looked at this image in colour because that’s basically how they appear on my computer, but I much prefer it in black and white.

Again, there’s nothing remarkable about this photo but I love how REAL it is. I’ve spent the last three weeks thinking about my marketing message and brand story (and all those other wanker marketing phrases) and I’ve also been thinking about how I want to reframe (pun intended) how I shoot. The consistent term for both of the trains of thought is “real”. I’ll probably post more on this later because I find telling others about it helps solidify everything in my head.

So here is a real photo of real people doing real things (yes I’ve thought of using that). And I love it.

PS: Did you love the photo? Each photograph in the 2022 365 Black & White Challenge is made available as a single limited edition print. If you are interested, click here to purchase this print for only $36.50. I thank you for your support of my photography and this website.

The BLOG:

As I mentioned above, it’s a “real photo of real people doing real things”.

The more I hear this, the more I want to go down that route. All of my favourite wedding photos are the grab shots. I’ve long known that my best work comes from standing back and observing and I think that’s why my event bookings are on the increase.

As far as portraits go, although I can pose you down to the fingernails, I prefer to “direct”, to put you in a frame of mind and see where that takes us. I took photos of my brother late last year and my favourite photos were the ones where I told him to play. Play for yourself, play something that makes you want to move. I literally stood back and grabbed the moments as I saw them, occasionally directing him closer to the light truly loving what we got together and I’m looking forward to doing that with another client today. 

I’m getting to the stage where I finally know (after nearly fourteen years with a camera in my hand) how I want to shoot and I’m looking forward to heading down that path. And yes, I said down that path because of today’s photo and I’m only a little bit sorry.

Philosophical wondering aside, I got to spend a couple of hours with my son today which was awesome. Now he’s twenty, we are not scheduling full day catchups and going out for a meal instead. I really enjoyed the time just talking about whatever he wanted to and walking around Queen Vic Market. Of course, there were doughnuts involved. It’s great to see him open up and talk about what’s on his mind too. I’ll always encourage that!

As always, join the Facebook Group if you haven’t yet, comment below, have a great day and I look forward to typing at you in the next post.

Richard

Facebook Group
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# Photo Information 
Camera: Nikon D810
Lens: Nikon AF-S Nikkor 105mm 1:1.4E ED @ 105mm
Settings: 1/6400 | f/1.4 | ISO 100
When: Sunday February 13, 2022 @ 15:27 (22 minutes after the previous photograph)
Where: Carrum Downs, Victoria, Australia

# Useless Website Statistics
Post number: 171
Published: Sunday February 26, 2022 @ 0701 AEDST
Composed: Saturday February 25, 2022
Scheduled Posts Ready To Publish: 1
B&W 365 Challenge: 58/365 (15% complete)
Candidates Folder: 4 (-1)

# Useless Life Statistics That Only I Like Looking Back On
Podcast Queue: 170 episodes (-6) | 130 hours, 17 mins | Current episode: 08NOV21 | 111 days behind (-6)
YouTube Subscription Video Queue: 49 (+6)
7DA: 16 (+3)

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