Running After Butterflies
Running After Butterflies
I used three different cameras during the course – as I’m writing, they’re on the desk alongside me – a semi-professional one, a mid-range one and a little ‘point and shoot’ camera, bought in the days before I had a smartphone.
I know which of them I used to take the different images in this project, simply because I can always remember which I had with me on the different days, at the different locations. But I can’t ‘tell’ which one was used – I can’t look at each of the images within a quartet and discern the difference from its quality alone; it’s not materially different from the others alongside. Yes, if I wanted to make a print which is big enough to go on the side of a double-decker bus (or to submit for an exhibition) the difference in quality would be a limiting factor – but not in the context of this website, not when an individual photo is only one quarter of (say) a 6in composite-image.
Slowly it’s dawned on me that a lot about photography isn’t about the photographs at all or about the equipment I use to take them – it’s about my mood and emotions; whether I want to feel like a child chasing after rainbows, running after butterflies; or I want to open my arms wide and embrace the sky; or whether I’m writing visual poetry, or soothing my anxious mind, or holding out a hand to help a friend; or whether I’m just taking a moment to breathe deeply and richly.
The camera and the photos are there to keep me company – coming along for the ride.
Along for the Ride (In the Rain)
Maybe, in a year or so, when the world is more at ease I’ll return to my earlier style of photography – the more conventional style.
I’ll take the ‘big’ camera out again (and it is big – it’s ten times the weight of the little one) and a rucksack full of camera equipment and resume photography that’s about the photographs. I’ll set up the tripod and take Long Exposure images – like the one alongside. And while the camera is working its magic, I’ll take the advice of WH Davies – take the “time to stand and stare.”
But until then, I’ll continue on this voyage with a different camera – and try running after butterflies.