Just keep clicking!

by Linda

 

 

These roses, especially the one with the drooping petal, reminded me why I love to take pictures!

I use my phone camera everyday and I enjoy it. It’s convenient, it’s fun and I can quickly process the pictures in so many different ways.  It’s quick and easy.  There’s nothing wrong with using a phone camera, but I miss using my DSLR. Using a DLSR is a completely different practice than using a phone camera, from start to finish. There is forethought about it, planning, executing.  The processing is completely different.

My DSLR sits in a place I can easily get it. Sometimes I need to grab it quickly when the girls are doing something cute and I want to get the shot before they stop doing whatever it is they are dong.  It is in plain sight and I look at it several times a day, but I haven't grabbed it. Something inside me wants to, but something else stops me.  I have taken very few pictures with it this year and that needs to change.

Last year, being involved with a 365 gave me a reason to take a lot of pictures everyday. When I look at those pictures now, I am filled with memories, some of those things I had forgotten about but the pictures saved them for me.  It's a magical collection of simple, everyday things that put a smile on my face. The simple, everyday things that make up my life.

This year I thought I wanted a break.  I quickly figured out I was wrong.  I missed the feel of the DSLR, the weight of it in my hand. I missed the sound of the shutter.  I missed being able to change the way a picture turns out by adjusting a setting.  I missed exploring and finding new things and looking at familiar things in different ways.  Because some of the things I love to photograph are outside, and dormant right now, that leaves me with things that are inside.  But what?

Inspiration, that's what I needed! I visit all my usual places everyday, flickr, Instagram, blogs and all of them were filled with beauty! I wanted to do that too! But nothing came to me.  I even planned to go to some places to take some pictures but once I got there decided it was too windy, too cold, too sunny too yadayadayada!  I set up some still lifes, inside.  I shot a few of those but wanted more and the camera went back to it's post, waiting.

This week, as I looked around for some kind of spark, I saw the roses on the table.  They still looked beautiful except for one that had a sagging petal.
 

This rose with it's single drooping petal, looked exactly the way I have been feeling lately. Off-kilter, out of sorts, not quite up to snuff, a general feeling of malaise related to cabin fever and not using my camera.  It was a warm and sunny day outside so I decided to take the vase outside and photograph it.

I started taking pictures of the roses, turning the vase, moving around the vase, shooting from above, from below, up close, far away and each time I looked at the picture on the back of the camera, I felt a little better.  Each click was therapy.  Each picture put a smile on my face. 

 

Look at the color!  Look at the detail!  Look at the bokeh!  What would happen if I changed a setting?  What would happen if I put the flowers over here?  Look how the light is changing as the clouds roll by!

How simple was that?  What took me so long?

 

So whether or not I'm participating in a 365 project, I'll be taking pictures everyday!   I want to preserve those little parts of my days!

It's my therapy project!  My life project!

Have you ever been an a photographic slump? How did you get out of it?

"There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day." ~Alexander Woollcott