Yesterday was Flickr.com’s 24 hours of Flickr Day, encouraging people to take photos and post them to Flickr eventually choosing just one as their best shot of the day. I took about 330 photos over the course of the day, from my after-midnight shots of cinnamon rolls
to the photos of the parking lot at Stop & Shop.
I found it to be a useful exercise — not least of which because it showed me just how little I know about photography. I take good photos for an amateur, but I have no idea how to bump my photography to the next level. It’s something to work on this summer. I feel that being a photographer does improve my skill as a poet — that taking photographs of things, and finding the right words to describe them, helps me focus (ha ha) the inward eye. Ben has suggested that I get an SLR camera at some point, and I’d like to. I think I need to learn how to use the camera I have, first. Then I’ll progress to the more elaborate camera.
Part of the reason I want to take photos is that I discovered by accident this past week just how useful a photograph can be. A kid was asking me what a word meant — mail, as it so happens, — and so I went online to find a photo of it. A few minutes later we found photos for damsel, and scullion, and lance, and hauberk, and a variety of other words connected with Arthurian legend. In ten minutes we looked up 50-60 words, which would have easily taken up 20 minutes or more of dictionary time. It was awe-inspiring how quickly this kid picked up the words.
Anyway, I haven’t finished key-wording or setting all of my 138 photos so far, but I have created a link from there to here, and of course there is a link from here to there. (Flickr: Photos from anselm23) So, please go check out my photos and tell me which ones you like.
HeloOOOoOOOoO.
Question, did you ever get my email regarding your interest in a column?
-John
It’s strange, in the last few days I’ve encountered a lot of people online talking about wanting to improve their photography skills. I’m one of them.
Buying the SLR camera is on my list, as well as taking a couple of classes. I could learn it in a book, but in my experience, things like art and music are a joy to learn in a classroom setting because I’ve been fortunate to have teachers in love with their craft, making it more personal. Having a teacher give you practical experience knowledge as well as the “book learning” part makes for such a rich experience that I’m glad I have the luxury of taking classes when I want to.
I really want to be able to capture the image I’m seeing in my mind’s eye. An online acquaintance introduced me to the concept of boke (bokeh), which I had always liked about photography but didn’t realize it had a name (google it, pictures and someone who knows what they’re talking about can explain it far better than I can).
Will definitely check out your pictures. I need to take some shots of the studio now that I’m actually getting close to completion – yaaay!