Sunday 2 February 2014

Why Do I Take Photographs?

It has been a few weeks since my last post, christmas was the main culprit which kept me otherwise occupied; not to mention the weather, which has been cold and wet. You may have read about the flooding in some parts of the UK this January. But by and large I have not been out and about with my camera. I have taken this opportunity to think about what I want to do with my photographs, am I an artist or a photographer; or maybe both?

Certainly until recently and the aquistion of a digital camera, my photographs were limited to family snaps and holiday snaps. However, over the past couple of years I have been thinking of myself as a phtographer, what does that mean?

I started a challenge on another (writing) site to post a photograph-a-day, and write about it. The photograph was incidental and only served to act as a focus for the short article. Otherwise, the photos which I post on this blog are of days out or my garden or sunsets, is this what being a photographer means. I have used photographs as references for my paintings, I have played around with them and edited them in photoshop, etc but rarely have I used them for their own sake. Except in the few instances where I have used them on Zazzle products, mostly greeting cards and postcards. I even asked the question at one stage, "Is All Photography Art?" I was never sure that I received an answer from any of the readers of from myself.

I am now wondering what this blog should be about. Where do I want to take it? Should I let it lead me? I am simply not sure. One thing is certain, I have far too much to do with the projects I have set myself on the internet and personally. I want this blog to mean something, not just a record of whatever I have happened to click the shutter on. I did not know the answer whwen I started writing and still don't. So I have a lot of searching and thinking to do before I can make a decision.

In the meantime, here are three photos which I posted at the start of that photo-a-day project (which is now defunct as I have left the site - Bubblews - in disgust at the behaviour of the site towards its contributors).


A local pub, quite a large andbusy one, this photo was taken early one morning


A shot in the rain, of the road in which I live


A gift which flowered in our kitchen window

Three very different photographs, nothing spectacular but each one gave me a subject for short article. I cannot yet say, but I may well try to restart this project on this blog. So that rather than the photograph being the game, it is used merely as a thought starter. And that reminds me of a TV program which aired when I was a young boy called, PinPoint. Each program started with a view of Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment in London. The whole program was built around how thoughts could jump from one item to another and it ended up following these various thoughts from one object to another. 

Perhaps explaining the way it worked properly could be the next post, we'll see ...

1 comment:

  1. Hi Arty, Sad to see that you have left Bubblews. I see a lot of potential here and I think you probably need to do what I did and let your passions lead the way. No matter what I did, I kept coming back to writing, so that's where my focus is but I do add pictures every now and then.

    Have a great day and keep in touch. Monna

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