Sometimes, I find I've taken some photographs that are so good, that I cannot understand why the world is not beating a path to my door. Or at least that part of it that cares about really, really good photographs. It soon wears off, of course. But, right now, I'm high-fiving myself (I wonder, is that the same as the sound of one hand clapping?). I mean, seriously, I just go for a walk round the block... Look what happens!
But, that was a paragraph ago, and I'm pretty much over it now. It's nice while it lasts. It's why we do it, isn't it, when we could be inside in the warm, watching the TV or reading the paper? Some of us, it seems, have a need that drives us on to seek that periodic Big Tick, as emphatically awarded to me by these two. Well done, you!
The trick, I suppose, is neither to be discouraged by having to mark your own work, nor ever to be tempted to cheat. And not to care that it might seem a little strange to many, still to be setting yourself homework, at your age...
6 comments:
An early inspiration in my climbing career, and subsequent life, was a photograph in a book about climbing in the USA. The caption was, roughly, 'Sometimes the exercise of skill is its own reward'. The photo showed someone stepping along a sparse line of empty beer bottles stood upright on the ground.
Process, not product.
The only question is, how does Richard Long manage to get paid for it?
Struan,
Precisely, on both scores. Though a predisposition to be satisfied with your own assessments (some people would call it "arrogance") is essential. We "high-functioning introverts" tend to be misunderstood...
Mind you, now I'm in Bristol quite often and know where he lives, I may drop round and ask him, though. Another candidate for my "bank statements of the great artists" project. I expect he'll be out.
Mike
Hi five, Mike! I'd be proud, too, if I'd taken them. Sometimes ye photo gods just seem to smile on us. Maybe they have a soft spot for those who simply enjoy found beauty and the resulting pictures ...
Best, Thomas
Thanks, Thomas. Couldn't quite understand what I was seeing when I saw those clouds in the second one... Snow-covered mountains? Nuclear disaster?
Just driven from Southampton to Bristol along the "M4 corridor" and it's been "found beauty" from end to end... Quite frustrating in one sense -- no-one in their right mind photographs when driving at 85 mph -- but totally exhilarating in another.
Mike
Motorway - that's very interesting, since I'm currently working on a project about the floodplains of the river Ruhr, which are immediately adjacent to the Autobahn 44. I also find the real estate of the Deutsche Bahn AG (our railroad company) very interesting, which is a (to me most entrancing) wilderness nowadays. Every time I travel by train I marvel at what a great project that could make ...
"when driving at 85 mph" - don't you have a speed limit of 70 mph on motorways? ;^)
Best, Thomas
Ah, yes, the speed limit... Purely advisory, until a flashing blue light appears in the rear-view mirror...
When I was a youngster of 17 I hitched on those Autobahns, and standing around waiting for a lift you do get very fixated on the road "furniture" -- the kerbs, gutters, rails, rubbish, etc. There is definitely a project to be made around the edges of roads and rail (I love the Victorian brickwork in the tunnels and cuttings leading into London's railway stations), but I think you'd end up in the back of a police car pretty quickly, these days...
Bought Raab's "Winterwald" btw -- very nice. Thanks for the recommendation.
Mike
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