It came to mind that I have never really talked about what happens on a happy snap day.
The trip in no matter what way is fairly dull, I start zeroing in of stuff on the way, switching from the looking that we all do everyday to seeing. Finding pictures in everything I see. Helps when I am doing shots for real. First thing first in the city was my little habit of destroying my innards with traditionally horrendous pie from a certain 7-11 store. Just habit really, but also now part of the ritual when I go happy snapping.
I normally have my targets and day planned to within an inch of existence, for many reasons, one it stops the whole running around the place like a headless chook, which I can ill afford, and the other to make sure I have a fighting chance of finding what I am looking for. Some of the stuff I have wanted to get are incredibly obstinate in actually being found. Pretty strange when you consider some of them public works of art. Other just notable for their amazing historical significance, yet still in both cases it has been a case of pure accident my discovering their existence.
So off I generally stride, my over sized bag giving me ballast and the stick randomly waving around too. Note here, if you see someone with a walking stick and see them rather clever about switching said walking stick from forearm to hand and back etc, think about it, they are extensions to the persons arm in a way and as such are not showing off, simply so used to these maneuvers that they are rather quick.
It’s been pointed out to me, that while I am shooting I generally don’t have too much trouble with balance. For one, these days I rely very heavily on visual points of reference for the balance, which explains why if I close my eyes for too long standing, over I go like a sailor at midnight on payday. So when even looking through a view finder, I am able to find points of balance easily and considering I am so used to looking through to that ompa loompa TV screen, it’s pretty much just like looking at the real world. Another reason is I adopt a very un-ladylike stance with my feet wide apart. Just like the previously mentioned sailor on payday, just before face planting the ground. The wide centre of balance very useful for simply standing but would look and be rather awkward when walking, etc.
Now, yesterday for example was pretty much a case of all went as planned. As usual I found a few little things along the way, and they were added to the list.
One of the stand outs was one of the first pictures I got. The back end of St John’s Cathedral. The back of the place perilously close to the end of the property, which happens to end in a rather steep, cliff like face. Looking up at it, I could instantly see something else, a rather Gothic like dwelling, all dark and mysterious. I got to thinking later that there was enough buildings to do an entire project on Gothic like structures around Brissy, and make it look truly dark and well, Gothicy. So that is the next project on the cards. Because I know it will eat into my brain like a pack of starving maggots until I get it out of my system.
The whole shoot was over in about two hours, because like I said, I plan these things, to death. It was a bit of challenge this one because I was jumping between some rather old places and things and some very new gear. Both required a very different approach. And of course very few of the old’s and new’s were together.
By the time I got back home the body was in the process of backing up it’s earlier threat of ‘You’re going to pay for this.’ Quite nicely.
But still nothing short of a coma will stop me from downloading the images and seeing for myself if I ‘got a good one’. There are a few things that come into that and with about 200 photos to wade through it can take a couple more hours before I have culled, cropped and created what becomes the final selection for the shoot.
Even then I will go back a couple of times with the critical eye and re-do a few before I am really happy.
In the end I settle on what I have achieved for the day, in all about thirty-eight images that will now get printed and put into books because while I won’t have a fortune to leave the kids and the grand kids, at least they will have the way I saw my home town when I was alive. Which by the way I might add, is a bit of a quiet achiever, but once you start to really hunt, the surprises never stop.
P.S. Please excuse the spelling and grammatical stuff ups, still sore as all buggery and couldn’t be stuffed editing.
