10580 Pam - 1981
"People" pics continues with another shot of Pam. Same as yesterday, this is a black and white conversion from an old Kodachrome slide (ISO 64).
I realized while compiling the images for this set that what I am most interested in is the "ordinary moment"... when nothing special may be happening, other than regular real life. Which itself is an amazing adventure, but one we often minimize while waiting for the next peak moment. The big game... the great concert... the tropical vacation... climbing that mountain... skydiving.....
Most of our lives happen in and around those events, and to be in the moment is to appreciate and experience the "ordinary" as something extraordinary. For example, the beauty of this woman as she sips her coffee by window light. In my present life, 43 years later, it may be a simple sunrise, or a grasshopper on one of my garden flowers (which I was photographing half an hour ago), or merely the play of light and shadow across a hillside.
The great depression-era photographer, Dorothea Lange, said, "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." That is the key. Learn to see the world for what it is - miraculous - and you will never lack ideas for photographs. That means learning to see past the ordinary, beyond the obvious, into the zone of deep perceptiveness from which springs the world's great art. I'm still learning this. It's never done until we're done!
Photographed in Vancouer, BC (Canada); scanned from the original Kodachrome 64 slide. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©1981 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
10580 Pam - 1981
"People" pics continues with another shot of Pam. Same as yesterday, this is a black and white conversion from an old Kodachrome slide (ISO 64).
I realized while compiling the images for this set that what I am most interested in is the "ordinary moment"... when nothing special may be happening, other than regular real life. Which itself is an amazing adventure, but one we often minimize while waiting for the next peak moment. The big game... the great concert... the tropical vacation... climbing that mountain... skydiving.....
Most of our lives happen in and around those events, and to be in the moment is to appreciate and experience the "ordinary" as something extraordinary. For example, the beauty of this woman as she sips her coffee by window light. In my present life, 43 years later, it may be a simple sunrise, or a grasshopper on one of my garden flowers (which I was photographing half an hour ago), or merely the play of light and shadow across a hillside.
The great depression-era photographer, Dorothea Lange, said, "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." That is the key. Learn to see the world for what it is - miraculous - and you will never lack ideas for photographs. That means learning to see past the ordinary, beyond the obvious, into the zone of deep perceptiveness from which springs the world's great art. I'm still learning this. It's never done until we're done!
Photographed in Vancouer, BC (Canada); scanned from the original Kodachrome 64 slide. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©1981 James R. Page - all rights reserved.