For the love of photography...

*for the love of photography*

Photography| painting with light
Photography| capturing fleeting moments forever

What defines a person?  What gives them their character and makes up the building blocks of the soul?  It isn't what job they do, how much money they earn or what car they drive.  For me it is about the passions, the loves that drive a person.  Doing things that you love, surely that is what it is about?  I love the beauty of nature, the kind of beauty found in a simple and raw form.  The colours and the textures.  Noticing tiny details and bringing them to the attention of the world.  Capturing them forever on film (albeit not quite so often these days), to look back on and remember.  I don't know how to describe it any other way than I have a need to take photographs.  I don't just want to, but it has become a way of life.  I love doing it, I am passionate about recording those fleeting moments in time.  That motivation is what enables you to see a good image, to know how to compose and to take a shot that works.

"You don't take a photograph, you make it"

~ Ansel Adams   

The moment a photographer stops feeling like that is the moment the camera should be placed to one side.  Passion feeds creativity, creativity makes for wonderful, emotive art.  So be encouraged, don't just take shots for work, to improve your portfolio and to increase cash to pay the bills (obviously all very important issues!) but enjoy what you are doing!  Without the love of photography, a photograph loses its art status and just becomes a photograph.  The shine has gone, the depth is removed and really, what is the point?  Making images is about energy, capture the light!  Capture the colour!  Capture the excitement and buzz of the life all around!  Go out and shoot things just for the sake of shooting them.  It will revive you and keep your passion alive.

Into the new year, with all its' challenges and excitement ...

 

New year, new beginnings blah, blah, blah ... do you enter the new year with wonder and excitement or a kind of sinking feeling, something that feels like a huge let down after the awe of Christmas.  Even though I usually lean towards the sunnier side of things, I find the turn of the year difficult and always enter it with trepidation.  

I love the build up to Christmas and all that it brings.  All the lights, buying and wrapping presents, carols and christmas songs.  Writing to old friends and eating lots of chocolate.  Hopefully, there will be snow and cold, crisp days.  You know the kind, the ones that make your cheeks rosy and tiny sprigs of moss on the wall sparkle.  Those are the days of my dreams.  Perfect Christmas holiday weather for taking long walks with my camera.   

This year I made lots of cake for Rhid's Christmas bike night ride.  There was a choice between Orange and Almond sponge, chocolate brownies and cherry scones (always best eaten straight from the oven).  Last year, we made Christmas biscuits complete with festive icing and personalised messages!

My favourite thing about the holidays is having the time to read new books.  I sit for hours with my new treasures and the most wonderful part about it?  I don't have to feel guilty!  It has become a bit of a tradition to get a new Paul Magrs, the perfect mix of excitement, brilliantly devised characters and marvellous plot lines.  Thank you Paul!  If you haven't yet read anything by him, I strongly recommend that you run, no sprint, to your local bookstore and seek him out.  If you like delightful capers involving supernatural mystery and intrigue then Paul is the man for you.

As for the start of the year, it inevitably brings with it responsibility and with the start of term, a whole load of new work.  A pile of marking, sorting timetables and trying to finish writing the dreaded PhD .... today though I got to come home early and was working on a chapter, whilst listening to Birdy, stroking the kitten and organising my numerous (still unwritten) notebooks! 

I love writing, I find that I'm always inspired to write, but putting it into action is much more difficult, particularly for "school work".  I don't want to be thinking about science, I want to have my head full of flowers, photography and baking!  The pretty, finer things in life.  My ideal writing places would look more like the cafe at David Austen rose gardens (below).  

I could sit for hours reading and writing in places like these, or under trees (if only the sun would show its' face again in Wales!).  Trying to fill one of my *ahem* 60 plus notebooks with notions and ideas.  But for now I'm going to curl up with my cosy Miranda Dickinson novel and watch Kiki being cute on our new bookshelves.  

Have a lovely evening all ... x