Personal photography
My time is insane every time I come to Oslo. I’ve been running behind in meetings again and it took me all day to manage to finish a 20 minutes job (and that’s after being in the office by 08:30 to try to get some time to do work). I had to wait until tonight to have any time to take photos (even lunch was a work lunch).
Work having started (that’s why I’m in Oslo after all), things have been seriously hectic today.
It’s Sunday. It’s still rainy in Oslo. It really feels like I travelled from summer to November in a day.
Toot! Toot! I’m traveling to Oslo this week.
You’re at the doctor’s for a scheduled appointment. It’s heaving. Even more than usual. Apparently, the temporary secretary doesn’t know how to manage bookings and she books too many people at once. So what do you do? You take photos at the surgery of course!
Switching to monochrome has changed how I see photography from the conceptual viewpoint, but also from the process viewpoint.
Lately I’ve been curious about medium format. I like the look and I like the 6×6 format. Unfortunately for me, I’ve never shot film. But that shouldn’t stop me, should it?
I never followed trends. Still don’t. The branded trainers, the tribal colours, the group signalling that consumed my schoolmates meant nothing to me (still doesn’t, I don’t wear brands). While they sorted themselves into neat categories of belonging, I couldn’t be bothered allocating brain resources to such nonsense. I cared that my parents bought me shoes, not which logo was on them. I wanted one decent friend to talk with, not membership in whatever faction was fashionable that term.
Sometimes small insignificant objects have an important legacy.
It’s easy to fall into the comfortable position of not taking photos, even if you want to. Taking photographs requires switching into the right frame of mind, if you’re into landscapes or street photography it requires you to go out, sometimes travelling, and then there’s processing whether you take digital or film. It’s just easier to watch TV or doom scroll.
