To begin with I searched through all the photos I am pleased with and made up a short list. The first one I posted was this. I love this picture and wish I could print it out, but unfortunately it no longer exists in any except compressed form as it was part of a big computer disaster which included losing a batch of images. I had uploaded them onto Facebook so am able to retrieve the compressed version but the original is lost. Since then I don't remove photos from my camera until they are saved in at least two places.
The second picture is another personal favourite, taken at Westonbirt Arboretum. After this I began to think about the fact that it was a photo archive challenge and not necessarily about the photos I consider to be my best ones, so I moved from digital photos, which accounts for the last ten years, to those I have in my many albums. Most of these have not kept well. I do have all my negatives (yes, even from 1962) in a filing cabinet and could in theory scan them in to create clear versions of them once more, but I'm probably not going to!
This photo at the Snake Temples on Penang, Malaysia was taken with my first ever roll of film, when I was 8. It doesn't have a huge amount to recommend it as a photo but I wanted to mark the beginning of my interest in photography.
Having got into different types of subject, I looked for a still life. I haven't taken many, but this one is one of my favourites. Getting photos printed in the eighties (and beyond) often resulted in distortions of colour because machines don't like an image to be more or less one colour range and they compensate. This still life was green and white (even the wallpaper was white with a hint of green) but the machine compensated with a pink wash. The print has probably deteriorated in the album as well but I managed to Photoshop it into something I still rather like.
My family first started saying I was a good photographer (which was kind of them) when I got a zoom lens and managed to capture family members unaware because I was standing some distance away. You can often, though not always, get some great shots of people if they don't know you're taking a photo. This one was taken in 2001 and shows a dinner at my house. The two people central to the photo were very close friends who both died within six months of each other in the last 18 months. This is such a happy photo, showing them both 'au naturel', oblivious not just to me but everyone else.
And finally ...
This photo from 2009 was an accident because I initially set out just to photograph the window I had just painted, however it is now one of my favourites. I like the composition of the photo but it is also a picture of a place and time that are very important to me.
Searching through all my old photos has given me yet another nudge to make sure I do more photography. I have ideas. The next task is to set aside some proper time for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment