There’s Ordinary and there’s just plain boring. The latter is how I would describe this week.
Basically I did nothing photographically with any kind of worth what with work and a family weekend away. There wasn’t even time for reading or inspiration from anywhere.
I did make a last gasp attempt to capture a nuclear sunset over the Clyde on Sunday evening with a dash up the Kilpatrick Hills when with 40 mins until sunset I was passing Erskine. When I got up to a vantage point there was about 10 Minutes of sunlight to play with. It was promising with colour skimming the underside of the low cloud as the sun dropped below them as it set out in the unfamiliar clear skies to the west. There was loads of colour, nuclear I think is the description but for me I just could not find a location or composition I was happy with and it was a battle to control the dynamic range of the sunset and the dark clouds and shadows.
The images I got echoed my initial thoughts, it just wasn’t to be. Lack of planning and a hint of desperation all seemed to play a part of it. You just can’t force a shot thats for sure and to be honest I knew that but with so little outings these days I had to give it a go, at least I got a bit of a work out trying to get up the hill in time. But I just didn’t enjoy any part of it and to boot I think I dropped and lost my sunglasses getting out of the car too.
Nothing to show for that quick dash has only confirmed the importance of prioritising the occasion and enjoying the outdoor experience instead of going out to bag a shot. So maybe it wasn’t just a bit of exercise I gained from that short outing, I’ve also relearned a lesson that I’d started to forget.
I was originally going to just leave this weeks blog out but then I remembered the reason I started this. It was supposed to show my photography world in all its dull glory, warts and all so leaving this large wart out would defeat the purpose. It’s about my thinking too and putting this together is in a way some self help in regards calming my a anxiety when I can’t get out for a walk or just to spend time in the outdoors.
Another thing on my mind is my first photography talk coming up at the end of October. I’m now starting to put it together and it has thrown a fair few doubts my way. Looking back at my work hasn’t helped, where like many photographers we are our biggest critics. I’m going to be conducting a large cull from my online storage to free up some space and also to get rid of those shots I just know I’ll never look at again never mind work on.
So one of the dullest and one of the shortest blogs so far, I’m hopeful but not optimistic it will be as low as it gets. We’ll see but I certainly won’t be getting too worked up about it.
Oh, I did get one shot other than family shots from a small wooded area near the property we were staying in over the weekend. I loved the sprinkle of light falling on the foliage against the dark entangled background so I got the IR camera a took a few shots.
I’ll leave you with one I was quite happy with since it is after all supposed to be a photography blog.
So until next week…………
