Purpose

Whilst in Barcelona on holiday, I stumbled upon a major exhibition by Diane Arbus. It stopped me dead in my tracks. Each picture spoke to me. I thought they were outstanding. This exhibition opened up a dusty file in my memory about photography and me. I took lots of photographs as a teenager and they got praised at school by the art teachers, which encouraged me. However, career guidance at school told me to leave that 'arty stuff' alone as there were no jobs and money in it, which was true generally, but you can't just ignore such urges. Now in my forties, I'm going to satisfy that artistic urge. So essentially this blog will play a part in bringing art and photography back into my life. It will record the things I am going to do to be a better photographer. It will be a showcase for my photographs as well and hopefully it will not get full of the junk my Flickr stream got cluttered up with.

So what have I done so far? I've been taking loads of photographs since Barcelona and trying to learn how a camera works, how to get the best from light and using Photoshop Elements. Many Magnum photographers were asked to give advice to 'budding photographers' and I was pleased to hear them say - 'embrace life'. I liked that and I will be doing much more of that. I have had a Flickr account for three years now and I feel it could be better and get more views. I have a Nikon D300 and D50, the kit lens 18 -50, a 50mm 1.8, and the Sigma 10-20mm. I will write more about what else I've done and plan to do later.