Another week has passed, and one of the more surprising from a photographic perspective.
I was sitting in my office working on Saturday morning, when Portia decided that she’d get out of her nest. The sun was steaming in through the window, so taking advantage of her sitting still in natural light, I grabbed the Canon and 100mm macro lens and grabbed some images of her. It seemed wrong not to choose one for the day’s photograph, which generated a little interest on Flickr immediately after posting.
We visited The Lowry theatre on Saturday evening to see Henry IV Pt 2 (excellent), and so it was a late night. When we got up the next morning, I found my phone had been inundated with updates from Flickr, and Portia had entered that day’s Explored list of “interesting” images. It’d been 18 months since one of my images had reached this top 500 “interesting” list so I was delighted, whilst keeping in mind that a cute image on a Sunday morning was probably a statistical good bet, and that it didn’t really have an impact on whether it was a “good” photograph.
Monday was difficult and draining, and was one of my less inspired days. In the end a still life of the eggs that I’d be scrambling for breakfast the following day, lit at approx 45 degrees by my led panel, was the choice.
I was determined to be a little more creative on Tuesday, and had noticed the potential at Pontefract train station when I picked Mrs G up the previous day. Camera bag and tripod were slung into the car, and I set up on the platform ready to capture the motion of the train and passengers disembarking. I didn’t manage the latter, I realised later that the shutter speed was just too long and the passengers understandably too quickly moving for them to be exposed even as a “ghost” image, but what I did capture felt relatively dynamic.
On Wednesday, I woke to find that this photograph had also been selected for Explore, and further investigation showed that Monday evening’s eggs had also. One photograph eighteen months ago, then three in the space of four days.
I wanted to create some domestic cheer yesterday, so popped down to our local florists for a bouquet. My first thought was to grab a shot of the florist wrapping the flowers, which she was fine with but in my nervousness about explaining that I wasn’t buying the flowers simply to take her photo, I managed to make a mess of the shot. Second choice were the flowers themselves when I got home.
This morning I find that they also have been Explored. Four images in a week, three days in a row. Once again, I’m at the point of reminding myself that this doesn’t necessarily reflect on image quality, although it’s very uplifting to have ten thousand views of an image rather than, er, ten.
Mrs G also pointed out to me that Brewdog are running a photo competition which closes next week. I have an idea, and took the first shots for it this lunchtime, needing to work on some further images later today, then the plan for today’s 365 photograph is a dusk / evening photograph somewhere in Pontefract. I doubt this will be as popular as photos of Portia and flowers. Tomorrow’s Halloween, and I’ve a plan for that too, which I’m looking forward to seeing come to life, so to speak.
Finally, I’ve just noticed that I’ve kept up my weekly blog post for over two months. Whilst I decided to do it, therefore expected myself to keep to that, I’m happy that it’s become such a habit.
Happy photographing!
