You had to be there

As I was driving home today to close out a very long work week that surprisingly only consisted of five days, I looked to see how one of my favorite trees was doing for the autumn and while I only had my phone on me, decided to make a quick detour and snap a photo.

While far from a quality image due to the camera, the camera at hand is the one that it will have to be. When it comes to whether a photo is good or not, far too often these days it is judged based on how sharp the image is and as cameras get better at adjusting themselves, a lot of the skill gets lost - much like this one that is a point and click with my phone.

Once upon a time, this might have qualified as a decent image as once upon a time, the equipment available would have meant that in order to capture it one would have t have some understanding of how that equipment worked in order to not over or under expose it. But, times change.

I was talking with a colleague late yesterday about photography and how in some places it is nearly impossible to take a bad image. He had been visiting one of these areas during the summer, Barcelona, but said that he struggled to get images and gave the impression that part of the problem was his equipment and its age.

These are some shots I took from Barcelona back in 2012 where my wife and I went for our first trip together. They are taken on a Canon 40D that I bought in I think 2008 and had some very low quality lenses for. The camera my colleague was using was better than this, but it really doesn't matter that much if one has some understanding of the equipment, the conditions and the composition.

While I am far from a great technical photographer and will never win prizes, I tend to be able to get relatively decent shots from a composition level and I think it is because I am not looking for a particular shot, but looking for something that interests me. A lot of people seem to go to places and look for "postcard moments" and while that is great for them, I can just go and buy a postcard and get a picture from someone else that is of a much higher quality than my own.

I remember a location through the images I capture of it and I don't mean just the place photographed. When I look at the shots above, I remember the reasons I found them interesting enough to take the shot in the first place and even if I didn't grab the precise moment, each is a personal reflection of my own perspective.

The first one in the series above actually sits above our bed and you can see it in other images, like the corner of it in the last post of mine.

What I found interesting whilst talking with my colleague was just ho much I like photography and how much I love the process of walking through foreign streets looking for something that catches my eye. When I have the opportunity to do this, I find that I spend a lot more energy taking in my surrounds, noticing the buildings but most importantly, paying attention to the people living their lives. In some way, it is a journey of sharing that life for a brief moment with them, even if I don't lift the camera and fire the shutter.

I have always been an observer of people but not so much the people themselves. Instead, I observe their behaviors and moods, how they carry themselves and their relationships with their immediate surroundings. Watching their reaction to the way traffic moves, a loud sound or when someone says their name is fascinating and being able to capture a glimpse of it through the lens a privilege.

It is because of this that when it comes to personal photography I do not think that the image quality is as important as the moment captured. However, it is also good to remember that while the image might mean something to me, no one else might care at all.

Guess you had to be there.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]