“No one needs to tell you you’re in love, you just know it, through and through.”
The Oracle – The Matrix
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{First, I’ve included a quote in my post, thats pretty amazing right? Alyssa and Nicole have obviously had some influence on me! It is from The Matrix though so don’t worry, I haven’t gone too mushy on you and it’s relevant, honest.}
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I’ve been thinking about my photos for a while now – why I take them – why I enjoy it…
why I can’t stop.
The best way to describe it is – it’s like I’m searching for something – I’m constantly looking around, searching for ‘it’. Sometimes when I take a picture, I know deep in my chest that I’ve found it – with a simple click, it’s there, locked onto a negative and I know it’s going to be amazing. The two photos above, taken in Leeds, are perfect example of that – as soon as I took them I knew they were going to be beautiful… and they were. Everytime I look at them I feel happy.
Sometimes I don’t find it – there’s a click but I know it’s not right – and I’m happy with that too… I get the results, I look at the photo, learn from them, think ‘right thats fine’. I appreciate them for what they are and leave them, it wasn’t there, I could tell. Above are another two examples of that from around Norwich with my Mum… Normally I wouldn’t even share these ones on here.
However, one photo has thrown me… I took it and knew it was amazing… I felt it. The framing was right, the focus was right… I went all the way to Manchester to take this one photo. I could feel it.
But when it was developed… my heart sank… it wasn’t right, something was missing – it was there, I could still feel it – but I couldn’t quite see it. So I did something that I rarely do with my film photos – I edited it.
For some reason editing my film photos riles me up. I love photoshop, don’t get me wrong, I used it for years at University to create visuals and edit my work and I’m more than happy to edit any digital photos I take. Thinking about it, I’m not sure if this distaste for edited film photos is my stigma – or perhaps one I’ve gained from the internet over the paste couple of years.
Either way, I tried to leave it – to accept it as a loss – but I couldn’t. Something was nagging me, a part of me was not happy and hadn’t finished searching… and it needed to find it.
Two simple steps – desaturate, adjust brightness/contrast… and there it is.
Can you see it?
I can! Its beautiful, it makes my heart skip… I knew it was there and in two simple steps, there it was. This one photo has completely changed my mind about editing film photos and made me so much more aware of my photography process. It’s amazing how one just photo can do that…
To me, each photo I take is like falling in love – you’re constantly search for it – everywhere you go – even if you aren’t aware that you are… sometimes you can’t see it, sometimes you find it in one step, sometimes you have to work a bit harder, perhaps challenge your preconceptions and break some of your own rules… but just like love – no one can tell you when you’ve found that perfect photo, you just know it… through and through!
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p.s. I told you it was a relevant quote – though I perhaps lied about the not being mushy…
