photography – Page 5 – don't confuse the narrator

a need to focus

I bought my first digital camera a long time ago, when I confirmed the sale of a photo-essay to a local glossy magazine. Since then, I haven’t made much of an effort to sell my articles, but those I have placed have often been illustrated with my own pictures. And, of course, I use my photos on this blog: other than screen shots, I don’t think there are a dozen images here that I didn’t take.
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moving targets

Usually, I take pictures of flowers and plants because they’re pretty and they tend to keep still; just occasionally, though, a moving image is too delightful not to at least try and capture it.

dogs playing in small pond — dogs just wanna have fun

The photo doesn’t do justice to the reality: there were four dogs in total, and for a few brief minutes before their – unseen – owner whistled them back, they chased each other in and out of that muddy puddle with pure unfettered joy.

duck, goose, swan

Most of the photos I post on the blog are of flowers. Indeed, most of the photos I take are of flowers. That’s partly because I like them, but also because plants are helpful enough to keep still when I point a camera at them.

That said, it’s been very windy recently which means that the plants haven’t been such good sitters. So I was looking back over pictures that I’ve taken in the last month to find something to post, and was surprised to find several quite successful ones of birds, who are normally far too flighty to make good subjects for my scant camera skills.

words & weapons

We went for a drive yesterday and, as usual, I took my camera with me. But I wasn’t really in the mood for taking pictures; I wanted to see things for myself rather than look at them through a viewfinder. Sadly, that means that although I have a few nice pictures of a reservoir, I missed a really good shot of black cows straggling across the Spanish hillside and another of a herd of bracken-coloured goats grazing on the scrubby roadside.

We also saw an elderly rustic walking down the middle of the road carrying a seriously dangerous-looking rifle, apparently stalking something. I didn’t take a picture of him, either, but that was mainly because I think that pointing a camera at a man with a gun is not the wisest of acts.
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focus

I am feeling pleased with myself: I have written just over 4,000 words of good quality original prose since Friday lunchtime.

I am particularly pleased as I’ve been dithering over this for ages and I spent most of yesterday having a day away from the screen. It seems that writing, like many things in life, is dependent on how – or perhaps if – you focus.