Summer Flowers and Fascinating People

Do you ever look at photos long after the fact and think about how beautiful and calm life looks (looked) in those photos? Of course they always seem to look calmer than life currently looks present day. Even if I took the image yesterday.

This is what I often think about when I look at old images. Especially photos I created where I can think back to the exact time and place when and where they were taken. Rarely do I ever remember how blasting hot it was, or how many bugs tried to bite me while I was taking those photos, even though that was clearly the case where we live. Today, those “old” images happen to be of summer flowers I recently took in our garden.

I love that photography is able to freeze time in a fraction of a second. Instantly creating a unique historical marker, each image as unique as the other. And in an instant, the image creates memory recall for the viewer, like a scent from the oven. Once that “capture” has been made it can sit there in a catalog. Sometimes it sits for hours, years, or decades, just a part of history, until it gets pulled out and shared. Maybe it’s shared with one person, maybe with the world.

Sharing Photos

I’ve taken almost a million photos at this point in my life. Yet I still remember the first images I shared on this site from over 20 years ago. I can even recall where I was standing that day, what the weather was like, and what camera I was using.

After all those images, and all that time gone by, the most common question I get is “what are you going to do with that photo?” I’ve never really had a good answer to that question. Mainly because most of the time I never know myself. Clearly sometimes you do know. Images are often created with specific intentionality, but not always. I know some images I take may never be seen again, even by me, but they have the potential to be seen, to be shared with others.

I think the ability to share a photograph with someone is why photography and the Internet go so well together. For those of us working in today’s world, the Internet is the ultimate conduit to share your photography, your creativity, with others. Maybe social media is the place for those images, but I love the independent websites and blogs hidden just beneath the google surface. That’s where the real gold is.

Making the case for sharing your photos does make people like Vivian Maier even more fascinating, more of a mystery. Why didn’t she ever share her work with anyone? Even during her time before the Internet was invented she could have shown them to someone, but evidence seems to say that wasn’t the case. But now, her work can be seen by everyone, what a gift. And I would say the world is a more fascinating place with her images visible and able to be shared.

Finding Fascinating People

Photography and words… blogging, writing, video, content creation, “adult creativity,” or however you want to label it, combine together into such a unique package that you see this combination in almost every form of story telling, advertising, and product or service for sale today.

I read a great post this past week where Tom Critchlow pointed out how too much of adulting is designed to stamp out individual creative expression, and photography and writing restore some of that, at least for me (sorry Tom now doodle on this post).

One of the most interesting quotes I read out of that post was…

A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people…

~ Escaping Flatland

The corresponding article was a truly original read about finding smaller groups of people on the Internet, not trying to target the masses. And that’s what, in the world of photography, sharing your images can do. It creates opportunities to meet smaller groups of fascinating people. But, it does take effort.

I’m always seeking out sites I’ve never seen before. They all have such unique stories. Google may own the advertising world and “sponsored” post results of the internet, but there are far more interesting sites out there than just the ones with the biggest advertising budgets. Photography is a great common ground for finding new sites regardless of the conflict of other personal interests.

In June alone I found these sites below. All fascinating people with fascinating stories, and not a single one of them I found on or through Google. I found them all through their connections to each other. That’s how they made it to my screen.

• One Camera One Lens Photography
• Randy Schoener Photography
• Slow Shutter Speed
• Photographias
• The Rusty Ruin Journal
• No Facilities
• KeithWee Photography

The connections that go on between sites makes the Internet interesting. If you can make it beyond social media and the top 5 google results, there are connections everywhere, but like I said, it takes effort. The reward is finding fascinating people and making them route interesting stuff to your inbox.

Create More Questions

I’ll leave you with this photography tidbit. As it relates to photography, let your images create more questions than they do answers. Have you ever intentionally tried this? This is hard. Maybe not as much in street photography, but in general, how do you do that with simple subjects, like summer flowers.

It can be done. But this is from the perspective of the viewer, not the photographer. This forces you to get outside your own box. Take my Asters above. Does it evoke any questions? Maybe not. I personally find the image moody and mysterious, but I took the image and really like it.

I might be able to think of a few questions from the viewers perspective…

• What is an Aster?
• Are they bulbs? Roots?
• Are they perennials, annuals or biennials?
• Do they come in any other colors?
• Where specifically were these taken? What time of year?
• Are they purple or blue?
• Are they wildflowers or did someone plant them?
• Do they grow in my part of the world?
• What does the surroundings look like outside the frame?
• What is in the background that I can’t see?
• What kind of camera took this image?
• What were the exposure settings?
• Did he use a flash? Is this natural lighting?

In photography, this creates intrigue, isolates subjects, and causes the viewer to pause for more than a fleeting glance. Images that create questions make for more fascinating photos. And when you share the photo, it just might connect you to some fascinating people as well.