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This is going to be a bit more abbreviated than I think I am going to want it, but that is mainly because I need to leave for work in about ten minutes, perhaps that forced brevity will be a good thing though. :-p

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and we were talking about "pretty" landscapes. It was a good discussion that got a couple of ideas circulating through my head, mostly just about how I run my own stream. I do not often post straight up "pretty" landscapes to my stream. But that is certainly not because I have any shortage of them, nor is it because I don't like them. In truth, they are some of my favorite shots to take, even above the quirky Holgas, the ethereal pinholes, the off-the-wall multiple exposures, infrared, grainy crops and so on that characterize the type of shots that I normally do post. My hard drive(s, for I have three of them now) are full of high-res, high detailed landscape photos, that on a personal level I find quite satisfying.

So why don't I post more of them?

That answer is not quite as straightforward. There are a number of reasons, but they do distill down to a couple of important ones. The first is that, while I find taking landscape photos in the traditional sense very personally satisfying, I do not find them all that creatively satisfying. They do not really challenge me much creatively. A lot of landscape photography these days, as done by the majority of landscape photographers is more of a science than an art. There are so many rules, formulas and frameworks for how to make a "successful" landscape photograph that it is almost like coloring inside the lines. Yes, lots of stunning and breath-taking photos get made this way, which is why these techniques are so widely practiced. I use many of them myself on frequent occasions because sometimes that formulaic and generic way of photographing a landscape is the best way to capture the subject matter at hand. And as I said, many of the photos I see taken this way, I like. Many of the photos I take this way I like.

But this approach does little to make me feel like I push myself, stretch my boundaries, expand my perspectives, and overall better myself as a photographer. If we are always coloring inside the lines, then we are always limited to those same lines. Exercising and perfecting technical prowess is certainly a key ingredient to becoming a great photographer, but exercising imagination and creativity is key to setting yourself apart from all the other great lanscape photographers.

And it also boils down to what I wanted my Flickr stream to be, which was not a portfolio of just my best images. I was not interested in just putting up my home runs for the purpose of impressing my peers. Neither my ego nor my self-confidence require that kind of boost. I decided early on, that I wanted to use my stream as sort of an on-going creative blog on photography, showcasing not just various ways one can use cameras and photography and vision to create different types of photography, but I also wanted to serve as an inspiration for other photographers on how they think and look at photography in general.

So I post a wide variety because that is what I like. I post my successes, but I also post my experiments. And as experiments go, I understand that sometimes these shots work for people and sometimes they don't. It is the nature of experimenting to sometimes, or often, fail. But that is ok too. You learn more from failures than successes. So I don't mind posting stuff that is off the wall, that I realize leaves some people scratching their heads as to why did I bother posting that.

I posted "that" because if you are always staring at the same stuff (photographs that is) you will not learn anything new. Photography as an art is a very subjective subject. As it should be. But it is tempting to want to make it an objective one, to believe that by using certain laws, rules, and other gimmicks that you can somehow definitively evaluate the worth of a photograph. This is generally nonsense in my opinion. Most of the best photography and photographers I know adhere to few rules except those which they created for themselves, and most of the photographers I know who try to strictly adhere to the generally accepted "rules" of photography, while often producing good photographs, generally do not produce much exceptional photography.

So now I am ten minutes late for leaving, good thing I always plan my departure to get me to work 30 minutes early! :-p

I just wanted to sum up that last part by saying, I post much of what I do, not because I think it is the epitome of my successful attempts at photography but rather because I think that while many of my posts embody interesting or new ideas, many also fall short of what I would consider successful photographs. So I post those to show that this is ok, it is ok to fail in pursuit

Alright so I know I spend quite a bit of time giving voice to all the strengths and abilities film cameras still possess. And though I say that I don't think it matters whether your personal image capturing device is film or digital, I realize that I spend a greater amount of my time shooting, posting and talking about film images. The reason is pretty simple, I don't actually own a digital camera. I never have. I eventually will. But for the time being I shoot all film, so it is only a short trip down logic lane to realize the bulk of my experience lies with film cameras. I know them best and so prefer them most.

That doesn't stop me from using digital though. Far from it. (Ok here is where that quiet, reserved fellow in the back raises his hand and asks, "Umm excuse me but don't you ultimately scan all your negs anyway? So in a sense you use digital imaging pretty much the same amount as film right?" Well ahem, yeah.... I do actually)

If digital one day meant the end of film altogether (highly doubtful it ever will) then that would be a sad day indeed. There are things film cameras can do that digital just plain cannot. Swing lens digital cameras anyone? Cheap and easy pinhole cameras?

But then again, there are things digital can do that film just plain cannot either. This infrared image for instance. I mean, yeah ok, one could probably argue that I could have tracked down a $30 roll of Kodak EIR, shot it properly and then tracked down a lab that still does Cibachrome and worked with them to end up with a similar image. I am not quite that .... adventurous. I would much rather spend all that time and money out making new images. Which is ultimately what it is all about right? Using what you like best to make the images that make you the happiest.

So back to this fellow. I was loaned an infrared filter a while back. And though I have yet to use it with a roll of Kodak HIE, I have been using it a ton with the store's Nikon D1x. With extremely fun results. I really am a big fan of digital color infrared. Well I am a big fan of infrared in general. But the thing that always gets my imagination going is a new technique. Something different that I can carry out to a familiar spot and discover entirely new worlds with.

I sometimes find it equally amazing and frustrating to think as I stand in any one spot there must be a countless number of images waiting to be found. Finding them is amazing, knowing they are there and unable to see them is frustrating. Every time I do uncover one though that inner six year old in me that still believes there is magic in this world wakes up the inner seven year old who in turns nudges my inner eight year old. And together they all stand around with me pointing and saying "oooh look at that!".