I have had a sudden realisation about my photography earlier today. I realised, considering most of the images I find inspiring, and the fact that a lot of my "reasonably good" photos don't appeal all that much to me. I don't actually like images that look exactly like what I would have seen if I was there. And the more I think about it the more I realise that is true not just for photography, but for the way of all visual art I enjoy. That is why, most of the time I would prefer a slightly surreal art piece over a say a perfect visual copy of a landscape. The kind of photography that appeals to me has enough of reality in that it seems real, but isn't quite.
Right now for my photos that means making use of things like shallow depth of field, long exposures and post processing. Take for example this week's photo, by all right's its not a great photo of the otter - the animal is not fully in the frame and there's lots of "irrelevant" bits, yet it is one of my favourites of my zoo trip and I think the reason is exactly because of the background, the otter is obviously the main subject, but there is now way while I was standing there looking at him that I would have seen the background going slightly blurry and the bokeh. That doesn't mean I'm going to disregard all the "rules of photography" or not learn as much as I can about it, but keeping this in mind will allow me to add my vision to the image, to create art rather than a recording.
I'm hoping this new way of looking at my photography will lead to more growth in my photos going forward. But for the two weeks I'm away so I'll post again when I get back
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