Originally uploaded by Vinnies_time!

Originally uploaded by ddario

underwater

underwater
Originally uploaded by superbomba

man o' war

man o' war
Originally uploaded by superbomba

checkmate

checkmate
Originally uploaded by superbomba

m m/twosome

m m/twosome
Originally uploaded by magdalena_f

Dot

Dot
Originally uploaded by Luke Stephenson

Ive never tried writing in a blog before. Its my first time around tonight. Suddenly I feel a need to conform or to take on a style which is not my own. Theres also an urge to write a little bit better, to read over all of my racial slurs and sexist remarks. but something tells me that, in time, I will start to understand the flow of all of this and the entries will gradually morph from private journal entries to public documents. Im still not quite sure to transfer the images. But here goes.
Im starting this blog because of a few needs. One to get used to the internet, to learn how to use technology to my advantage, to learn about what others are doing in the world, to learn about photography, etc. Unfortunately, the more I learn about the world of photography, the more I find that photographers are generally very irritable people, who can often talk for a set period of seconds until they must agitate their prints in the fixer. However, the internet opens up many new possibilities and possibly an avoidance of these specific people.
To talk about today, the flickr-ing is going well. Each day I am learning a bit more than I did the day before. I started this about a week ago and already I am feeling the effects. You can track the progress by checking my favorites. i have yet to post any of my own work. I dont have the means to do so at the moment. I also dont feel up for it. Living in another country can be very uncomfortable. One aspect which I dislike about it is not having the flexibility or mobility that I might have in my homeland. Im not even sure if China will allow me to post photos of their country. We will see I suppose.
I didnt have time to chose many photographs although, in the end, I would like to keep it down to just one (already giving myself rules). Ive also been looking beyond Flickr to other sites by those who I enjoy. For instance, Ive been slowly scanning through the photographs of Michael Fleming and picking apart the list of blogs and websites from Catherine Maloney’s site.
As I looking through photos today, I continued on with the thought that as carried through from days before: the need to give in to impulse, or to try to react much more to my feelings as opposed to ‘the good’ or certain concepts which have already been enacted in my head. The thoughts have brought me into thinking about not just shooting with the 4x5 but also taking on cheap, old cameras, (possibly a sweet brownie) and forgetting all of the rules to just shoot.
Being that I have no film, manual camera, light meter, etc., I am left to shooting with my digital point n’ shoot for now. It is good for collecting certain thoughts or items but beyond that, it is basically useless. I am seeking to have tangible photographs to look at; to refer to an object as oppose to an image on a computer screen (this might be a loaded statement, but I am working under a time schedule). An image that seems to be carrying through from the past few days is the example posted by Luke Stephenson. I dont know this guy, Ive seen a few of his photos, they seem nice, but he doesnt appeal to me as a photographer. There is something about the image of this little girl though that I find extremely interesting. It is something that I havent yet considered in my own work.
When I look at this image, I dont think about the lighting or the composition presented by the artist, I think about having this image on the wall. lately I have taken to cutting out various images i find in magazines and newspapers and putting them on my wall. I think this image is along those same lines. But this presents the problem of how the artist is to actually create work. (this might not be clear yet in my writings but in time it should make sense) What I am trying to say is, given that any image has a possibility of being beautiful, even those images that one finds in a ‘Home Decor’ mag, how might the photographer go about making images.
My current quest is to make photographs which are tangible, that go beyond just being set images from a documentary perspective or digital photographs which are confined to the boundaries of the computer screen. My goal is to be impulsive, to react to what I am seeing and feeling. Im not sure what will come of it. However, it is bound to lead me in the right direction. For a first post, this should be enough. I have yet to tackle the actual question of what it is that really draws me to this photograph, although I suppose that this will be nothing more than my own inclination which is devoid of any universal beauty. Eliminate the interest! Sorry if it is a bit long. Give me some time and hopefully things will work themselves out. And thus, a blog was born.