first entry; first shots

I read about photography (sporadically) and (from time to time) think about my own work and what I'm trying to achieve. I have post-it notes stuck in books, torn out images and articles piling up in drawers, and random URLS stacked in favorites. Sometimes it I remember that I want to do something with these. Even if it's just to put it all in one place, so that i have easier access to it. And then when someone asks that constant first question "what kind of stuff do you shoot?" I have an answer. Or at least one that's considered and within reach.

So this first entry is dedicated to why I started this thing (see above) and why I started shooting in the first place.

I never considered photography as a creative path. Since I was kid I thought writing was my creative outlet. Though I never called it that. I just wrote a lot. I liked putting words together. I never directly pursued writing though. Or maybe I should say I was never truly dedicated. It actually began to hurt when I got older. I would stare and think, stare and think. It would take hours for a paragraph. I don't think I ever thought about going back later to edit. It had to be a certain way right from the beginning.

The first photographs that I took that I remember really liking I took just after college. It was on a trip to Europe and they are totally tourist pics taken with ... it might even have been disposable cameras... I can't completely remember, but I know I didn't have a camera then. Anyway, when I got my pictures back these two just stuck out.


Louvre

Venice

I didn't actively compose these, nor did I usually look at my pictures afterwards with anything like a critical eye. But from the first I loved how the line of the I.M.Pei glass pyramid cuts into the older Louvre building. And the one in Venice, how foggy it was and muted the colorful palazzos. The way the river bends around. The yellow of the boat lights. I kept these. Put them in little 4x6 frames. But never thought about photography in any other way for years.

This is going to sound corny, I know. But one day I was driving up to Portland from Boston. It was for work, I was going to a conference. Anyway, it was like my vision shifted or something. I describe it as... like all of a sudden I could see pictures! The way a fence stood out against a lawn I was driving past. The shadows and lines. The contrast. It became very vivid during this drive. I kept seeing pictures in things I was passing. It made me want a camera just so that I could shoot these things and not have any regret that I was passing them without marking them. I don't have any images from this drive. I didn't have a camera.

Soon afterwards I bought disposable cameras just to have in case I really needed to capture something. And I continued to see things that I had to take. These few snaps are among the first I ever took after that. Some are with disposable cameras. Some with a Pentax point & shoot I got when disposables became costly and hard to keep track of. And when I knew that I really wanted to preserve what I was seeing, not just to stave off the regret of not having done so.

learning to shoot shots...

contrast, shadows, defining boundaries with chimes


light on a building in new york city


scaffolding and clouds, new york city


san francisco light


porter square, cambridge


telephone poles in pittsburgh