It is a while since I have posted about photography (I think). Then I guess that it is a while since I have blogged at all. Today I have been trying out a new custom tone curve now that I finally managed to get the Nikon Capture software running. But I was also thinking about having taken plenty of pictures through my past few months of D100 ownership. Now I am even posting a photo a day on this other nearby blog... and what I realised was that although fancy cameras, tweaked with clever software and even a taste of better, more optimistic weather have all helped me take nice pictures, what really made a difference has just been taking hundreds and hundreds of images over the past months.



Carrying a camera as often as possible is the best way of starting. Looking through a viewfinder, the world through the lens - even a shabby third party zoom - is a different place. And actually looking about and observing what is special about the everyday or the essence of what you see comes with that. The simple act of lifting a camera to the eye and shooting over and over again and thinking about aperture and where the light is and composition and timing. And then not thinking about aperture or where the light is or composition or timing and just letting instinct take over... all add up to images that mean something.

I am not that interested in photography really. I just like pictures. Especially pictures of places or things or moments. I will let you know how the Fotogenetic Point-and-shoot curve goes. It should improve the detail and colour saturation of my midtones and shadows. It could be the answer to some of the muddy colouration that I have been getting with this camera... it could win me prizes and make people tell me to go professional - yeah right. But I don't think that it will tell stories like shooting day in day out will.

I get far more satisfaction and indeed excitement from a picture shot randomly from arms-length, focus and metering entrusted to clever Nikon boffins I guess, but the real quality of the picture in the hands of something altogether harder to define, than I do from a carefully composed and considered photo. The nature of a still photograph seems to fit far better this chance grab at capturing something of a moment in time. But doing it every day certainly seems to help get luck on your side.



Thanks to Puplet's friend for sending this shot of me, taken at the weekend on top of the Wilberforce Building.