I have the Flu and not feeling too great. In my infectious haze, I thought I might post a few photos here. Perhaps it will distract me from the next round of tablets anyway.

After such a scintillating introduction, here are some photos that fell into the miscellaneous-to-edit folder and were duly forgotten ~

I think sometimes that packing the camera bag can lead to days out that are simply an excuse for using the camera gear, rather than relaxing days where new things are discovered and time is well-spent charging the inner batteries. The photo above was made on a cloudy day out and I remember feeling some frustration that I wasn’t finding much of interest for the Nikkor glass to focus upon.

In Susan Sontag’s essay – In Plato’s Cave – she says:

Photography has become one of the principal devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation.

I remember times where I’d experience an event – a concert, a holiday, a dance – primarily through the camera lens, just waiting for the right moment to click the shutter button – my eager eyes glued snugly to the eyecup. In such cases, the event is mediated via the camera ~ trapped within the borders of the frame, subjected to technical decisions – aperture, shutter speed, ISO. At what cost do we do this? Are we truly experiencing something when we stand apart from it and divorce ourselves from the present moment? Is it not better to allow the eyes to take in a feast of dazzling coloured fireworks after dusk rather than gaze only through the viewfinder, the polychromatic spray flattened across optical glass? Is there a deeper need to possess the moments as evidence that we were there?