Personal photography
One of the things that I’ve been thinking about for a long time is: what will happen to my photos once I’m gone? I’m not talking about whether the actual images will still exist (hint: print). I’m talking about what will people do with them.
To start the series, I’ve taken a random photo from many years ago. In May 2009, I visited the isle of Islay, on the West coast of Scotland, with my wife and my parents. Islay is a pilgrimage place for people interested in peaty whisky and both my wife and my father are into it. So it made sense to have a visit.
I’m still trying to identify why I like Substack so much more than other social platforms. So navel gazing warning is in place.
One of the things that annoyed me with Substack is the fact that the various people writing on it do so for duplicates of themselves.
I’m not a street photographer. Part of it is that I live in the middle of nowhere and we don’t really have streets. I was in Paris at the weekend to visit my parents, so I experimented a bit.
Sometimes, photography reminds me of scientific research. Both disciplines demand an intense focus on minute details, adhering to conventions that outsiders rarely understand, communicating in a formalized way, and both often seem incomprehensible to the general public.
In our modern world of unlimited cloud storage and high-capacity hard drives, the practice of printing photographs might seem antiquated. Yet, this traditional approach to preserving memories remains not just relevant but crucial, particularly when considering the long-term preservation of our visual heritage.
Sometimes people call me pedantic because I insist on defining things precisely. I don’t do it for pleasure. I do it because it’s important and it helps understand things.
I hate photography challenges. They just don’t work for me. But I also desperately want to take part.
Over the years, I have developed what I call my photographic style. It doesn’t mean my photos are good, just that I found what pleases me and what works for me. And that’s what I do. I don’t do this professionally, not even creatively, so I don’t feel the pressure to be different.
Admit it: you can’t always be great. Despite what “influencers” want you to believe, not everything in life is perfect, and certainly not from the get go.
