Personal photography
In today’s world, we’re constantly bombarded with photography. The perfectly curated, Instagram-ready images that tell a story in a single frame. But one of the most important things I’ve realized in the last few years is just how significant it is to take photos of the people around you. Not the posed, carefully staged portraits we think of as “important” pictures, but the candid, everyday snapshots that capture the essence of who these people really are.
The last time I was there, the boat had gone. I presume the parking spots are at a premium and there is fierce competition.
You have to be there pretty early on a Sunday morning to see the place as quiet as this. I found the jet canons interesting and I liked the fact that they were aimed straight at the tower.
As I said before, I’m not a social media person. I often find myself questioning whether I should try harder to be on those platforms and what they could possibly give me.
In an age where photos are posted daily (hourly? Minutely? Secondly?) on platforms like X and Instagram, it’s easy to overlook the deeper intentions behind each image. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this: why people take the photos they do, how they approach it, and what they see in those images. And as I’ve navigated these thoughts, one platform has kept me coming back: Substack.
The ability of humans to specialise in a specific skill always impresses me.
In the pursuit of photographic excellence, we often find ourselves trapped in a self-imposed prison of technical perfection. Sharp focus, precise framing, and optimal exposure become our jailers, limiting our creative expression and emotional connection to the images we create. But what if these supposed imperfections are not flaws at all, but rather windows into a deeper, more authentic form of storytelling?
I didn’t grow up with social media. I grew up in an era when computers were uncommon and the (public) internet didn’t exist. For example, at the end of high school, I chose to attend a computing exam as part of baccalaureate, even though I had never had a lesson, my high school didn’t have a single computer, and it was one of the first years this could be done, so there was very little material about what to expect (I got 95% without ever knowing why I didn’t get 100%).
Slains Castle, in Northern Scotland. It is associated with the author Bram Stoker, who was a regular visitor to nearby Cruden Bay between 1892 and 1910. The castle is mentioned in his locally set novels, The Watter’s Mou’ and The Mystery of the Sea:
Looking for perfection in photography, spending fortunes on the latest hardware and gadgets, pretending to be a photography god, are all nonsense. What counts as non-professionals is evocation. And sometimes it’s not something you can convey to anyone else.
There’s a weird trend among hobby photographers: the tendency to frame their passion as “work.” This simple word choice, while seemingly innocuous, fundamentally changes our relationship with photography and risks stripping away the very essence of what makes it special.
