When I first started photographing "things" and not just family events or school chums fooling around it began to dawn on me that ya gotta have something worthwhile to shoot. Now, the trick is how to decide what would be a worthy subject. It can't always be beauty cause we all know that is in the eye of the beholder and not every landscape is deserving of preservation in photographic history. Something you see or experience has to compel you to take the shot. Inspiration comes as a reaction to seeing something lurking in a landscape or a pattern in a brick wall or something discarded on a street corner or a bug on a flower or...? The key is to have that camera near at hand loaded and ready to shoot. Loaded...not film but how about a media card and fresh charged battery.
The roses were glorious and the antique car in front of the similarly painted house was a happy accident. The door was one of my first. It was a door to nowhere on the defunct Coca Cola building downtown. Loved the bricks on the building and boy did I shoot them. The old painted bench and the swing happened by accident. I saw the swing at the end of the tree lined drive as I drove past. The sun was setting over the James River and that swing was caught in the light with the sparkling water appearing as a halo surrounding it. I couldn't wait to start shooting and continued clicking after realizing I didn't have the lenses needed to capture it the way I envisioned. The bench was sitting haphazardly inside a fence next to the lane with the swing. The glare from the sun was blowing out everything surrounding it so I had to return another day to reshoot the white painted iron bench. I believe some purple fringing is still visible. The clock tower on Richmond's downtown train station was just begging to be shot while I sat in stopped traffic on I95. That camera was my first decent digital. I was a Nikon P90 (if memory serves) zoom and though not very good in low light and only rendered Jpegs, it could take quite a good shot. Even though it was taken in a burglary it got me thinking seriously about photography again. I still have my 1967 Asahi Pentax Spotmatic camera body and assorted lenses for which I traded a gentleman a CB radio and antenna. That should give you an idea how long ago that was! The most recent shot is the sun dawning through the fence. I just happened to see it out the bathroom window and managed to get the shot. Nothing earth shattering, but I liked it. You can't go wrong with digital photography. Shoot to your heart's content. The only limit is battery life and the size of your media card. The more you shoot the more you learn about yourself and your camera and lenses. It's a win/win.
The photos here are old and imperfect, but I saw something or was compelled to preserve or interpret that moment in time. It may have only been a "moment" in my eyes and had no impact on most anyone else who happened to see it at the same instant. But maybe my/your shot will share that moment and affect, entertain, inform or simply help a smile appear on someone's face.
Be happy. Keep shooting.
