Morning Walk Shots 3
As the Sometimes a Surprise post explains, there are moments when everything seems to come together and photography is pure joy and the results pleasing. Most of the other time, it’s work. Perhaps enjoyable work, but work nonetheless. A struggle to see images and to make photographs that, if not great, are at least visually interesting or in some way moving. In the end, much of photography is practice, training so that you’re ready when the situation presents itself (and it’s up to you to put yourself in those situations - that’s the thing about photography, you have to be there to photograph it) and experimentation. The upside to practice is that occasionally that’s where you make certain discoveries, get the seed of an idea that later develops into something good. So you keep at it.
And that’s what my walks had seemed to become. Exercises in figuring out what else I could shoot. Or if I was Apple, I’d say “Shoot Different.” It started promising enough. Not too far from our home I realized some interesting shadows and lines were being cast on a wall across the street and I spent some time trying to figure out how to photograph that play of light and surfaces.
A bit further down the road I re-photographed a location that, given the early pre-dawn light, looked entirely different than the first time I photographed it. It was the same confluence of streets, but the sky seemed to change everything.
And I revisited one of my earlier photo locations, this time framing it from another direction. I guess at this stage I should really confess that sometimes I’m not really sure why I’m making some of these images other than they appeal to me at the time I’m making them. And I’m still trying to figure out if they’re any good or interesting in the least (or what might make them interesting if they are). That’s all part of the process.
So I’m keeping at it.
But that’s not to say I don’t always not know why I make an image (how about that lawyerly double-negative!). All I have to say about the photograph below is that if you find a dog lounging in the street in the early morning, just figure out a way to photograph it.
So I did.