Thinking Sideways!

A different walk today up the steeper hill this afternoon, (I'm trying to regain my former fitness). By the time I arrived panting at the stile I was in need of a little diversion and remembered one of Freeman Patterson's activities that I read this morning, which was to take twenty photos in a particular place. Well I didn't quite do twenty - maybe a dozen and this was the one I chose.

The scenic sunset is here tonight >>>

Earlier we'd been to the Wortley Arms for lunch with my mum and dad. I won a forty pound off a meal voucher from the Christmas Draw - so today we celebrated again and had a very, very good lunch.

You probably will stop reading at this point (if you haven't already stopped)! The rest is a bit of a ramble as I reflect on me and photography!

I seem to recall that hpx recommended the books of Freeman Patterson when I first started blipping and I looked on Amazon and then did nothing about it. Then, this week, I got a notice from Pixels to say that he was due to deliver a workshop in NZ, so it got me thinking about him again. The result was that I've bought one of his books, `Photography and the Art of Seeing' which has recently been updated. My first reaction was that this stuff is a little `old hat' and that I have enough visual training to know about many of the things he writes about. But I have to say he's made me think and remember and maybe this is all part of me reclaiming my vision for image making which I think I may have forfeited a little in recent months. Don't get me wrong - I've learnt lots and lots about both the artistic elements of photography and the skills side from fellow photo club photographers and I wouldn't change any of it. But perhaps on the whole I've only ever had the `feeling' side of photography nurtured via some of you fantastic Blippers on this site!

I think one of the things that has changed for me this week is seeing how much the judging of images is so dependent on what a particular judge likes (forget that there are supposed to be criteria!)

My play it safe photographs that I entered into this months Pixels competition got play it safe marks - which is fair enough. The one I took a risk with, Gallery Ghosts, was loved by one judge who gave it 8/9. It was probably seen as just about OK by the other who gave it 4/9. You could see this happening throughout the judging with one judge favouring a more creative approach and one a more traditional approach. They did meet up in one or two places fortunately - so that was OK and the winners were duly announced! So what has this taught me - well I hope that taking risks are worthwhile and trying to second guess what someone else will like is a pretty futile occupation. (You'd think I'd have learnt this at my age - perhaps I have in relation to many things!)

The internet had just gone on me and then come back so I thought I'd better upload while the going is good.