Exercise 2
Review some of your holiday photos. Without worrying about the quality of the
image to begin with, try and remember your motivation for taking them. You’ll probably
identify a range of reasons – from wanting to record a view that took your breath away to
thinking ‘I’ll never see the Taj Mahal again so I probably ought to take a picture’.
To what extent did you consider the composition, viewpoint or lighting? Did you go back and
take a similar shot later in the day, for example? Why did you take a photograph rather than just
buying a postcard?
Pick out any images that seem to give you more than just a record of place – images that take
you right back there. What are the special qualities of these images? Of course, it’s impossible
to isolate the technical elements of the photography from how you felt at the time, what you
were doing, who you were with, but try and decide whether the images you’ve selected have
anything in common. Show them to someone who wasn’t there and record their response.
Mobile phones and iPads, in some hands, have taken discrimination away altogether. Now
there’s no need to worry about wasting film, you can simply snap away and sort the results
out later. Do you think it devalues the final image if little or no thought has gone into the
photography?
There is no doubt that many of us have found ourselves in front of an iconic
landmark and we were tempted to take a picture of it. Many of us, looking at
the quality of the picture we have captured we were discouraged and
embarrassed; not everybody is a good photographer!
So, in order to make sure we have something that reminds us this place we
buy a post card. A postcard though, is a reproduction of a piece of work of a
photographic artist. It is not a unique piece and it cannot fully document how
we have felt or who we were with. A postcard captures certain features filtered
by the photographers taste and point of view.
What do we do then? We go with our gut. We get carried away and shoot photos
using our own feelings and capture what really matters to us alone.
After all, we are the ones who we are taking the pictures for.
Cretan Holidays!
I have shown those pictures to a couple of friends. I was observing their faces. They couldn’t stop smiling! They both said: looks like you had great fun there!
This is what family holidays all about: spend time together, be active, sightseeing, discover, enjoy as much as you can. Create memories.
Photography is helping you to keep those precious moments alive. Becomes the bonding element between families and a footprint of a carefree past. Becomes a legacy and part of a unique family history.
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