More often than not this is the sort of photo I take:

I take my time, I try to come up with an interesting composition and, most importantly, there’s nobody in it. I’ll get into position, frame my shot, and then stand (or crouch), sometimes waiting minutes just to take my photo during that small window in which nobody is in my viewfinder.

Granted, it wasn’t too difficult to do in the above photo taken at the Whirlpool on the Niagara River…there was only a small handful of people there…and I was mighty glad of it.

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Last week, I bemoaned my inability to take spontaneous photos. Looking through my library tonight I found evidence that, every once in a blue moon, I do manage to snap a super spontaneous photo…

A few years back while vacationing in Italy, after an exhausting day of walking way past the Aurelian Wall to the catacombs and back into Rome again, when I was just dying to get back to my hotel room and never use my feet again….we passed a wedding party posing in front of the Colosseum. I couldn’t resist: I pulled out my camera, and as I was hurrying by, took one quick photo of the happy (and wholly unknown) couple.

It was spontaneous. It was well-timed. And it was of complete strangers….something I’m normally too embarrassed to do. But having seen the shots my boyfriend takes of “the locals” and having fake posed so he can snap a photo of the homeless guy behind me…I now see the value of taking photos of strangers. Seeing how they’re interacting with and reacting to their environment can offer you a whole new perspective and appreciation of a place or a view.

I failed miserably at taking a photo a day. I also completely failed at taking everyday photos on a regular basis, which I thought would be easier than taking photos on a daily basis (I guess it wasn’t). As a result, I think I’ve become a little gun shy: I haven’t been taking ANY photos at all.

To try and re-inspire myself…photographically speaking…I am going to randomly highlight photos from my library that I like and enjoy, in the hopes they’ll remind me what I like about photography, and get me snapping again.

Here we go:

My boy took this photo of me on the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls. I like the feeling you get that it was taken almost unexpectedly (like he was caught in the act). This is the kind of spontaneous photo my boyfriend excels at taking. Once in awhile he’ll actually manage to snap a super spontaneous shot that doesn’t show the subject (umm…me) as a clueless mouth-breather.

My take-away from this photo: Don’t always try to take the perfect picture. Take more chances and just press the button already. It’s digital, what is there to lose?

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I love details. I especially love being able to capture the details that initially drew me in to something, and that helped create an emotional response to it. I’m not always successful at doing this (ok, I’m hardly ever successful at doing this). But I keep trying: in this closeup of the Vietnam Woman’s Veterans Memorial I made a valiant attempt to do so…look at the expressions on the faces, the texture of the hair and the clothes (and the teeth!)…

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This is one of my favourite photos of my late cat Weasley…it didn’t matter that I had a crappy camera at the time, or that I barely knew how to use it. It was taken at just the right time of day, providing the perfect lighting: sunlight streaming in the window behind him glows beautifully off his back, and highlights his plentiful whiskers (God, I loved those whiskers of his). Sometimes everything just kind of falls in to place, and we manage to capture it.

I love it when that happens.