Pointlineshapeformtexturepatterncolorasaurus...

I realized something today when I was walking around running errands; I have what I will refer to as the "that looks cool so I'll take a picture of it" disease.

I need to start looking at photographs in a much different light (hehe, no pun intended) than I have in the past. I've always had the idea that if anything strikes me as interesting looking, it'll make a good photograph. This is completely and utterly false, in my limited experience. Nine out of ten instances the image in question is too busy, says nothing significant, or is impossible to accurately represent photographically without post techniques I have zero access to (or, let's be honest, ability to use) at the moment. I came to this conclusion after realizing first that I'm not really a tourist anymore, as I sort of live here in Oxford on a bit more of a long term basis than any of the other places I've been in the past month and a half, so I don't need to take the "Holy shit the (famous place here)" photos anymore. And, at least to some to some degree, the sick amount of pictures I've taken with my camera already have shown me it's capabilities, which I'm proud to say are quite impressive for an entry level camera that's almost 20 years old. So, with that basic foundation in place, I can begin to focus my attention much more on composition, which is a relief, as my pictures have been somewhat generic to this point. Granted, I've gotten some technically good shots, but for the most part they're uninteresting, and aside from being somewhat aesthetically pleasing, if someone were to ask me what prompted me to take it, I'd have nothing beyond "Well....I liked the way it looked," and that's not why you take photos...at least on a level beyond "Look, I was there."

I simply wish I knew how to make my pictures say something. I mean, granted, I've been tossing this age-old question around in my head for a mere 5 weeks. A lot of people spend years doing so. But, it seems there's much more to it than simply snapping a shot of a pretty pink sunset, or taking pictures of ducks and boats. I've found that my simplest shots of the seemingly most mundane things have been my favorites, because when you do that, you're pulling artistic value out of the completely ordinary. For example, I have sitting next to me a close shot of part of my windowsill in my room, and it, to me, holds much more significance than the shot right underneath it in the stack of a very, very beautiful sunset we had a week ago. I (somehow) managed to make something completely ordinary, even flat out unappealing, into something someone might look twice at. However, this is nearly all I have to show from 6 rolls of film.

To this end, I believe that shooting in black and white for a little while will do me good as a photographer. The absence of the rich colors usually present on modern films forces the photographer, and ultimately the viewer to focus on the basics; point, line, shape, form, texture, and pattern. Color is usually the last one, yes, but the point here is the absence of color. Once I have the basic tools down, I think bringing color back in will make my photos much more worth looking at, as right now I'm drawn to bright colors (like most primitive creatures), rather than things that lead an observer around a picture...like on a little mini-journey of epically esoteric proportions.

Now I just need to purchase a black and white film that a minilab over here can do something about processing.

Russ