On the way to Art Fest!
Now I'm about a week late on this, but last week I went to the Grand Rapids Art festival. This is a bit different than art prize, which is later this fall. Art Fest is a combination music festival and art festival it has more performance arts that art prize, or at least that way my point of view. I will be updating and talking about my experience there on Saturday later this week Right now however I want to talk about what I did on my way there.
For about three weeks I've been trying to get a picture of a hawk in my back yard. Sadly I've been working my tail end off these last few weeks and I usually don't have more than about 10 minutes to sit and wait. I've literally missed this bird fighting with other birds on my lawn, landing close to a tree we have out back. That's why I'm glad for what happened on my way to Grand Rapids while I was on my way to art fest.
I was driving down the highway and I saw a hawk circling. I debated for just a moment, for the last few weeks I've been more goal oriented than anything else. This of course would take away from my goal. Also there wasn't a good vantage point to get a picture from, The hawk was flying high and I was stuck on the ground. But photography isn't always about goals. It's always nice to have a quote of pics from a shoot, but if you never stop and take a picture even if it's an unlikley shot, then what is the point?
As you can see the pictures I shot weren't particularly good. I'm shooting upward from the ground, the bird is backlit against the sky, and these aren't even the best bird pictures that I've put on the blog, let alone the ones that i've taken. So why am I writing about this? Because photography is an art. Art isn't always meant to be success or fail, good picture or bad pictures. in fact many time techniques that we use today may have been considered mistakes in the past.
I doubt that these pictures will spark any new styles or ways of thinking about photography, but that's not the point. The point is that amongst my busy, currently hectic life, I still was able to find and take the time to stop and take pictures that would likely not be extraordinary, just for the sheer joy of photography.
This week I present a challenge. Carry your camera around with you all week. and sometime, when you aren't especially busy, when 10 minutes won't hurt you much and you seen something that may or may not be photo worthy stop and take a picture. Maybe it's a bird flying, maybe it's a plane taking off, or a nice car you see in a parking lot. It could really be anything. But get some pictures of it.