Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Photo of the Week - The Easy Way Out

This week's photo - again, embarrassingly, shot with my cell phone - is from a project I am working on that is sort of an experiment in spontaneous image-making. Twice a day - at 8.45 and at 2.15 - my phone alarm buzzes, and I'm supposed to take a picture within five minutes of something interesting around me. Depending on the day, this is either difficult because I'm sitting at my same desk for the eleventh day in a row, or easy because I'm out on a shoot and there's all kinds of stuff around. I seem to be getting a lot of photos of my cat, since he's usually draped over the nearest surface.

These were some florist-shop daisies, the kind that have their heads grown so heavy that they come with a little plastic green sleeve around their necks to hold them up during shipping, so that they don't nod like a loaded sunflower. I like the way this one is sort of peeking into the sun, but staying mostly in the shade - a prudent course in the southern summer, no matter what your species, as I'm doing it myself - and the direct sun is giving the bottom petals an almost molten glow.

I called this post "The easy way out" because when I pulled up to do it,  I really didn't have any idea what to write about today, and I realized how much I use the photographs I post as a starting point for my writing. Even though my blog is very photography oriented, I primarily consider myself a writer, not an image-maker - but someone who's very focused on visual stimuli. I would never do a purely photography-based blog, but I can't imagine doing one that is strictly text, either. I need the photos for inspiration - to let the writing genie out of the bottle. Nothing earthshaking in that realization, just something I was pondering today :)