I love photos. Love looking at them and taking them and I’ve taken to digital photography well too. I recall taking film rolls to the chemists and waiting a week for them to come back. (I used to go to what is now Day Lewis Chemists for this if I wasn’t posting rolls of film off to people like Bonusprint. And there’s the old joke about Cinderella, . Why was Cinderella at the chemists? She was waiting for her prints! And yes I have cleaned that joke up a bit..!).
One of the joys of a site like CFT is of course seeing the photos people share here and that’s fabulous. I thought with this post though I’d share a few of my favourite pictures and then invite others to write a follow up post to this one with their favourites. Any takers? I do hope so.
What makes a photo special?
So much depends on the memory a particular picture evokes. But some of the ones I’ve chosen for this post do have things in common other than that. I love water shots and especially where light “plays” on the water. I also like interesting reflection shots.
Naturally I love pictures with Lady in and I have found that the best dog pictures are totally unplanned. I’d been taking a picture of the view on one where Lady seems to be playing hide and seek with me. (See slideshow further down). And one of my favourites of her is the one of her looking out to sea seeming to be lost in thought (and that’s not a moment which happens often with her, trust me on that!).
Photo Books
I compile a photo book each year concerning Lady’s adventures with us in the year and am about to start work on what will be the third one. This tradition started as after we lost our first two dogs, Gracie and Mabel, we wanted some kind of permanent tribute to them and we cherish both their memories and their photo book tributes. I also found compiling those therapeutic. My only problem in compiling the photo books was choosing which were the very best shots. I had many I could’ve used and didn’t.
Losing a beloved pet is easily the worst aspect of pet ownership and I found creating these books useful. With Lady being so young, I wanted a book to reflect every aspect of her life. Nor did I want to wait until much later on to create a tribute to her so Lady’s “annual” has become a nice aspect to Christmas for us. And without photos, it wouldn’t be possible of course.
The Invention of Photography
I can’t imagine a life without photos. Nor do I wish to! The British Library have an interesting link to the invention of photography – see https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106980.html – but of course nobody could have foreseen how this invention would revolutionize everything. After all from still pictures came the moving ones and cinema etc. And for another interesting piece see this link here – https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/history-photography
I am grateful for the invention of digital photography. I’ve found that when taking dog pictures, what works best is taking several at a time. Usually I find I end up with two or three good ones and, of course, that’s another huge advantage to digital cameras/smartphone cameras. No more worries about running out of film. No waiting for days to see how they turn out. And with an online photo editor, such as the one I use for CFT, I can easily crop, resize and do any manner of other things with that “raw” picture to improve it.
What Digital Photograhy Makes Possible
Photos are also the life blood of online magazines such as this one. People expect to see visuals now. And writers have had their way of working changed, especially for non-fiction writers. When submitting work, publications are ideally looking for writers who can work to their way of thinking and provide the pictures as well as the text. The invention of digital photography makes providing those images so much simpler to achieve.
Digital pictures made it possible for me to produce my book trailer for Tripping The Flash Fantastic too. The images are from Pixabay (of course – and I’ll take this chance to say what a wonderful site they are. Looking at their images for use on posts for CFT encourages lateral thinking which in turn feeds into the writing of the post itself. Naturally I’m going to have a soft spot for a creative site which in turn encourages other forms of creativity.).
When I was clearing out my late parents’ home, I came across the following pictures of my mother’s parents on their wedding day back in the 1920’s. (My grandmother’s dress kind of gives the era away – classic flapper style if I’m any judge). I’d not seen these before. Mum had kept these pictures carefully tucked away but it was a joy to see them and then snap with them with my camera phone and store them digitally. The backdrop by the way is Chiswick House Grounds, a fantastic and lovely place. I was walked there a lot when I was very small.
And coming bang up to date, this is the image I used in my cyberlaunch for Tripping the Flash Fantastic. When my order for the book came in, I asked my better half to take loads of pictures of the happy author opening the box, holding her book up etc (as you do!) and of course Lady had to see what was going on. This particular photo seemed to scream “ideal photo caption competition” at me and I used it as such for the launch. All of the entries made me laugh and it was a hard job deciding on the winner and runner-up but it was great fun to do. It’s certainly something I’d do again.
Private Eye is renowned for its photo captions on its front covers. I don’t think anyone does this kind of thing better.
Photos and History
And photos have helped create and shape history. Think of the images of the Berlin Wall coming down. Think of the images from the first man landing on the moon etc. People remember images. Photos are also often used to help dementia patients. When my mother was in care for this dreadful disease, one of her favourite things was to look through published books which were in effect published scrapbooks. But these all contained photos of old adverts and things like that which she would be likely to recall. Fantastic idea to use images like that to act as therapy for people.
Now over to you. What photos are special for you and why?
Related Posts:-
LOCAL AUTHOR CYBERLAUNCH NEWS – ALLISON SYMES – TRIPPING THE FLASH FANTASTIC
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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Allison, your post reminded me of time spent in the photographic club at school. There I learned the chemistry of B&W photographs, silver halides, sodium thiosulphate and pyrogallol. How I yearned for a 35mm camera to replace my box brownie.
A friend collected the most boring picture postcards he could find. I always try to identify the most boring in seaside shops, it helps one learn what makes a good photo.
I must look out a few pictures for CFT.
Like the idea of trying to find boring pictures, Mike, and yes I’m sure you’d learn a lot from them. In the writing world, I find I learn useful things about why a story doesn’t work for me and then try to ensure I don’t do the same thing for my own stories.
I look forward to seeing your pics on CFT in due course.