February

         It's the second to last Saturday of the month and I'm sitting at a counter at Detour Coffee in Wincey Mills in Paris. I'm having an Americano and trying to think of an idea for this blog post. I tried to take a picture through the window that is in front of me but found that the memory card in my Fuji X-E3 is filled up. Hardly surprising. The X-E3 is one of the two cameras I took to Spain in the spring of last year. I took a lot of pictures in Spain. Considering the cold grey weather we're having, I wish that I could be there again. I fell in love with that country! 

    No worries. I've got a new SD card in my camera bag. I change out the cards and take a few shots through the window. Back to the matter at hand.                                                           

   

        My son brought up an interesting point in regards to artistic discussion. All of the philosophical rhetoric regarding the artistic experience is null and void if you don't have a reasonably solid body of work or if you're not in the process of creating that body of work. Within the photographic community there are a quite a number people who talk a good game but ultimately fail to deliver. Some people are too busy being photographers to create good photographs! I know that sometimes I'm guilty of it.

     In my opinion, if I am going to make a good, or at least interesting photograph of something I have be, at least to some degree, in awe of it. The subject has to have some visual value or I have to provide that value in the way that I photograph it. Often, it's a combination of those two aspects of image making that result in the creation of a picture. Sorry folks. As a photographer, sometimes ya gotta work for it!

    When I'm at the top of my game making photographs, there are a lot of facets of the craft, that ultimately go into making the image. My skills, experience, vision, choice of equipment, knowledge of the controls of said equipment, training, tips and tricks that I've picked up along the way. All are concentrated into a simple squeeze of the shutter button. Hopefully it results in the creation of an image that is pleasing or at least visually interesting both to me and those who look at and appreciate the pictures I create.

    Ultimately, it's the reason I loaded a fresh SD card into my camera. It's the excitement of putting all I've got in this craft at any given moment into the press of a shutter button.  That's the joy and the challenge of it. It's what keeps me going. 

    Even on a grey winter day in February.

    ...more later