The Beginning...

My first camera was a Brownie 127. Originally it was my Mum's. I shot my first roll of film in 1969 on a trip to Bruce's Mill Conservation Area, finishing it outside the apartment we lived in. I have two photos from that roll. The other photos have long since disappeared.

Here are those two remaining images...

Please remember, I was only four years old! But this might just have been a little foreshadowing for things to come...

Nurturing a Talent

Nurture and Growth...

Photography doesn't have to be something you love doing. Photography can simply be a tool used when doing something you love to do. Photography is a hobby that enhances our other hobbies.

The backyard, or armchair horticulturalist should also be a photographer! 

If you're a gardener, you should photograph your flowers, your shrubs and your vegetables. A visual record of your yearly growings. A written journal of the plantings, prunings and harvests through the gardener's year is a great planning tool for the next growing season. Ever since gardening became a pastime, armature horticulturalists have been keeping journals. Included with these written notes there were sketches. Why not include, or even replace those sketches with photos? After all, most of us have a better eye for photography, than a talent for drawing!  
   

Photos are the sketch book without the need for a talent to draw.
Photography is our visual record. A diary or log brought to life through imagery.

Keep taking pictures!

Vemodalen!

Vemodalen!

What a fantastic word!  

 

The frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist—the same sunset, the same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an eye—which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself.

This frustration must be felt by many photographers, professional and not so professional! But what seems most frustrating to me, is knowing I have taken that same photo that already exists!

So what can I do?

Take more photos!