Here is image #2 from my trip to Ireland. If you can’t tell by now, I’m keeping you in suspense for the expected shots of castles and green landscape. They’ll be along eventually but in the meantime I hope you find these opening acts to your liking!
I’ve written previously about how I don’t quite know what my style is as a photographer. I’m noticing as I go through my hundreds of shots from this trip that I’m not much of a documentary photographer by nature. I didn’t really take any shots that say, “I was here.” I can serve to document when needed but I tend much more towards the artistic side of photography when left to my own devices and inspirations. In fact, while in Ireland a local spotted me snapping away in some old church ruins and stopped to ask, “Don’t you want any pictures with you in them so that people know you were here?”
Another common theme I notice in my work is that I always strive for a timeless image. By this I mean that I try to avoid things such as modern clothing, modern cars… modern anything really. It’s not always possible since I don’t have the power to move permanent fixtures or the time to wait three hours for a car to vacate the scene. However, if I can manage it through creative composition I try to keep things out of my photographs that scream, “this was taken within the last few years!” I think I connect with art on a deeper level when the image looks as though it could have an infinite number of story possibilities; when you can’t quite place it in the 1960’s, 1980’s, 2000’s, etc. In this photograph, for example, I don’t think there’s anything in it to immediately suggest that it was taken on 29 June, 2012. Perhaps it could just as easily have been taken in 1973, nine years before I was even born. The actual telephone inside the booth might be a giveaway to the astute observer but hopefully I’ve done my job to not make that the focal point of the shot.
It’s funny how things in context can impact you differently. If I were to first post my shots of the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher or the awe inspiring Quin Abbey and then follow up with this old telephone booth it might be received with less appreciation in their wake. I really do like this shot. If I were to find this old telephone booth in, say, Flagstaff, Arizona I would have been very excited but when looking through my pictures of Ireland I almost passed it over without giving it another thought. A beat up old telephone booth hardly compares to the magnificent beauty of nature but I’m glad I stopped to appreciate it for its own potential story and I hope you will enjoy it too.
Canon 5D Mk III with Canon 50mm 1.4 USM lens. ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/80 sec