Today I want to recommend two bloggers from South Carolina.
One I have written about before, Andra Watkins, The Accidental Cootchie Mama. She has a series this week that I suggest you take a read of and then dip back into her past oeuvre.
The second is a new discovery (for me). Arley Seth was kind enough to visit and like the Quotidian Hudson and I followed the link back to him. He has recently started a blog called Shootabout. It is a photography blog and I think you will enjoy his work.
I took my own walkabout in the neighborhood today and realized that in all the time I have lived here, I have never consciously taken a picture of Tom’s aka The Seinfeld restaurant so here is a little touristic snap.
The other day someone asked me how I choose the shot or shots I put up. I have talked about it before but that was a while ago so…Monday through Friday during the school year, late at night I whittle down what I have shot that day to 10 or 15 favorites. The next morning, before she heads off to school, I show them to Abigail and while we talk or chat, depending on what is going on, she chooses 3 or 4 of the shots. Then, after I have looked them over and thought about what I want to write, I pick one (or more if it is a walkabout).
She and I both agree that sometimes you don’t pick the “best” shot, the one with correct color balance and composition etc. Sometimes a “bad” shot is more evocative of the day and the way you feel and I always go with that. I have had some photographers tell me that is a mistake, that I will look unskilled or like an amateur. So what? Photography is a craft, an art, a reflection of the photographer, in other words, it is like any other art or form of self expression.
When I was a grad student, teaching beginning theater undergrads in theory and acting sections, they would have big ideas about how to blow the stage apart and set the world on fire and I always encouraged them but I also always told them to learn the rules. You can’t do a good job of blowing something up and rebuilding it if you don’t know where/what it is.
End of soapbox.
A church with barred doors seems a contradiction to me but …see my note above…
Some things are beautiful and transitory and very much a snapshot of their moment. Some things mellow and deepen with age.
1-25-11
