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There is the mystery in photography.
Why do I take a picture here but not here, here, or there? I can always come up with some incomplete answers. Sure, there’s the light, the color, the composition — and the beauty or mystery or drama, the life inherent in what I may uncover to shoot. But why choose to take a particular picture?
It’s a gut decision. I see something and it stops me in my tracks. I use my mind to figure out how best to get the shot. What is it I want here? Can I get close enough? Sometimes, like for distance where I can’t get any closer, I keep only the image in my mind. The one that got away.
It really is a mystery in the end. What I shoot and what I see later that I select to edit. Many of these images will end up on my website. Fewer to become prints. Prints are my best images and the best way to view them.
The conventional wisdom, don’t show a lot of your work. Be selective so you show only your best shots but not too many. Then, people will think, he’s got an eye. He’s a good photographer! Nevermind, he may have shot 100,000 images to only show 20, they are all great shots! I think otherwise: I want you to see my images (if you are interested), even those which may not be my very best. Trust me, I still cull from a large number of pictures I take as I am always shooting. Always a work in progress.
That’s the true mystery. Why it still feels so exciting to work on the next image. To take the next picture.
Not a composite set of images but a covering reflection over a broken window in Portland’s Hollywood district.
At first glance, the letters look like it spells the words Oregon Metal Sutters. Well, the internet and the AI guys all say, no fellow, ‘sutters’, you mean ‘shutters’. No. Turns out, the word is slitters, not sutters. It’s a machine that cuts coils of steel. Not why I took this picture though, I like the contrast of the old, worn sign against the cement wall background. It stands out nicely in black and white.
The owner invited me inside his stevedoring company where they used to actually make custom marine parts for cargo ships in the 40’s and 50’s ending sometime in the early 70’s. I was attracted to this old door and what light from the other room was shining through.
On a dumpster in the tiny coastal town of Bay City. Goes to show, everywhere there are interesting images to find even in the most obscure of places.
