It seems to me that photography these days sometimes tends to be a trendy, flavor-of-the-week kind of thing. Last week my image-making brothers and sisters were shooting pictures with their cameras tilted crooked, trying, I guess, to produce imagery that was "different" than the norm. This week maybe they are shooting everything with a wide lens, kind of half out of focus. Next week…well, who knows?
Last week we were sharing our work online using Flickr, this week it is Instagram, and next week…?
I say: Hooey! None of the above really matters, does it? At least not to me.
What matters is this: Is my heart in an image I've made? Do you, as a viewer, sense even an inkling of any kind of soul in what I've shot?
Here is a sampling of a bunch of personal pictures I've shot fairly recently (they're "personal," in that no one paid me to do them.) They're images I made because I was exercising my eyes, or I saw something that pleased me, or maybe I was just goofing around, playing.
Will they last for me? Will I think the pictures are worthy a year from now, and do the pictures have visual staying power? I can't answer that because I don't know. Only time will tell.
I do hope the pictures aren't the result of me simply following a stylistic trend.
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Above: Leah and I were invited to dinner at a friend's house, and it happened that they had a swimming pool ("it was here when we bought the house," my friend said, half-apologetically.) I liked the light near the diving board.
Below: Some friends stayed overnight at our house and I shot pictures of their child.
And I shot these pictures of the Tibetan prayer flags that hang in our yard...my way of remembering when the wisteria was in bloom, and sketching (with my camera) early-morning light.
And of course I'm forever shooting pictures of our Best Friend, Pax.
A friend and I did a hike last weekend on the north side of Mt. Rainier.
And, as I cut the grass near my strawberry garden, this little fellow hopped past the mower. I stopped the machine, carefully picked up Little Froggy, and moved him out of harm's way.
