Watch it while you can

Another episode in the BBC seemingly periodical series on what artists do all day features Tom Wood in Ireland. http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b03wxk2w/ A fascinating insight into his way of working, and some great 'photies' too - if you like that sort of thing. Although a contemporary and friend of Martin Parr, and a photographer of not dissimilar subject matter, his career could hardly be more different!

As this is supposed to be a blog about photography here's two from today's trip to a nature reserve. Like Mr Wood I tend to have too many balls in the air at once. The drainage thing is still in the back of my mind, I even made a couple of pictures that might work in to it, but I've got the nature reserve thing nagging at me now. There might be a format developing here. The two pictures below were deliberately taken to work as a pair. Whether I can make a cohesive set of pairs of pictures in this vein remains to be seen.

While I was wandering around today I got to thinking about how you can try to make individual pictures that are not just of something specific but also about a bigger idea, or you can take a lot of pictures of things which when put together become, in total, about the big idea. This just demonstrates that there is no one thing that photography can be defined as. It can be put to many uses. Which is one of it's great fascinations and attractions. Particularly to someone with a grasshopper mind like me who has never been able to work in any one style, genre, or mode in anything I do for any prolonged period. Most artists settle into one groove, and many amateur photographers seem to be in search of a personal style as if that is the apogee of success. It takes something like genius to pull off changing, or varying, styles and remaining consistent and not coming across as a dilettante. Only a handful manage it. Picasso? Neil Young?

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