Personal photography
We exist in time. Not as discrete snapshots. One of the difficulties of photography is to capture in a single frame what is part of a stream of consciousness. This idea has bothered me for a long time and it feels like a failure that photos aren’t part of the stream of consciousness.
Not a usual discussion about photography this time. As this post is out of schedule, I decided to cover something more in line with A day in the life. I’m taking you on a walk around my village.
As I mentioned before, I normally walk on my own after each meal, often in the house because of the weather and to be available for work just in case an emergency arises. But at the weekend, I sometimes go for a walk with my wife instead if the weather is nice. As spring has arrived (the geese and cranes are back and the birds are starting to be noisy in the morning), we went for a Sunday walk after lunch.
In a world that often feels overwhelming and difficult to decode, I’ve found a lens to be more than just a tool. It’s become my interpreter, helping me understand and connect with a reality that sometimes seems to speak a different language than I do.
I’m not used to be on the lens end of a camera. I’m usually the one taking the photos, to such an extent that my mother complained a few years ago that when she went over the family photos to create albums of her kids (a thing mums do, I guess), she could only find a few of me. And I’m happy with that.
But recently I decided that I wanted to capture more of everyday life and people around me for my personal record. I’m getting old and I’m increasingly aware of the passage of time and how I can’t go back.
So, this time, a slight departure from the usual ramblings: I’m going to show you a day in my life. If you’re interested in pushing the fun further, we could turn this into a loose collaboration (I know I don’t have a large reach here, but whoever wants to take part is welcome): show me a day in yours.
This post might be long…
Continue reading “A day in the life”I see photography not just as the activity of producing images/art/a record, but also as a bridge between our internal landscape and the external world we selectively engage with. While we cannot directly photograph thoughts or emotions (yet), our choices in subject matter, composition, and timing reveal the invisible threads of our inner narrative.
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.
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.
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%).
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.
