089 - Street Walking

089 - Street Walking, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is another in my cycle of summer road shots - finding pleasure on the way to and from work.

We waste so much time and energy hating the modern world, but I say it is time we learned to appreciate what we have created in spite of its imperfections.

There are two general types of photographer - those who wish to capture everything with the lens and alter nothing to the image thereafter, and those who have no fear of damaging the image after capture - and many people who do both, of course.

Capture is about retaining the past, destroying is about creating a new future. And yet it is the practice of destruction that safeguards our ability to cope with unavoidable changes, while capture eventually destroys what it seeks to protect because change will come.

See my images for poster, canvas and phone case: www.photo4me.com/canvasprints/trevor-butcher

079 - Street Corners

079 - Street Corners, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Winter is a great time to go out with a camera, especially early in the morning - the combination of clean light, no leaves, and, in this case, people trying to stay warm, makes for some interesting ideas. You do not need a large camera, or expensive lenses, the most important thing is to look at the world and not photograph the first thing that comes to mind.

Things that come to mind first are primarily things placed there by society and are not your own thinking. Because these ideas come from society, they appear in most people's heads as first thoughts too. So, learn to resist those first thoughts, and instead keep on looking and experimenting. You will get there, but it just might just take some time.

See my images for prints, canvas and phone cases: www.photo4me.com/canvasprints/Trevor-Butcher

Apple Barrel

Apple Barrel, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

I have had the original image of these apples and have already used them for another image. However, I really wanted to try out my abstract techniques on them. When you see the thumbnail, it just looks like yet another photo of apples, but when you see the full size image it is quite obvious it is not a plain photo.

And this is also true in life, what looks similar when seen from afar often looks very much different on close inspection. People often waffle on about national culture, as if it were all the same, in each family. Get real close and you find it's different - even the people desperate to be seen to fit in with national culture don't agree on the details. And many folk just do it plain different anyway. Which the fit-in folk would discover if only they stopped looking at themselves and looked to see what others were really doing.

So, with Easter soon here, I will be doing the kind of things mine and my wife's families usually do - because we do it and not because it fits some national model.

This image is available as a print, on canvas, or on the back of your phone: shop.photo4me.com/picture.aspx?id=275252