Portraits and travel photography
  • home
    • about
    • contact
    • blog
  • portraits
  • News photography
  • travel
  • food
  • interiors
  • Prints for sale

8/10/2015

Imperfect Pictures

2 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Perhaps because I worked in book publishing for several years before becoming a photographer, I have a tendency to think about what will be a 'useful picture' when I go somewhere. So if I go to Budapest or Lisbon or wherever, I try to get a good shot of the local trams, of souvenirs, of the main buildings. The kind of thing that might get used in a guidebook or on a travel website. And of course it should be sharp and bright and carefully composed.
This has meant that sometimes I have not taken shots of things which are abstract or trivial or too quirky. But lately I have tried to relax a bit more and reconsider what might be useful -- once you put pictures with stock libraries I think its very hard to predict what might get used. 
Recently a poetry publisher asked me to send a selection of images for them to use on the cover of an anthology. As is the way in publishing, they need a front cover long before the choice of poems has been finalised, so there is no specific subject matter for them to brief me on. I just had to think about vaguely poetic, abstract images and hope for the best. 
Picture
The top image here was taken from the front seat of a London bus stuck in traffic. I drew the heart myself to pick up on the red lights, which are the tail-lights of the vehicles in front. Next is an image taken from a train in Finland. Because its blurred it isn't a 'good' photo in the ordinary sense but the trunks of the silver birches and their yellow autumnal leaves, plus a glimpse of blue sky, give it some kind of atmosphere which a sharp image wouldn't have. ​
​The last image, below, is actually sharp -- it just doesn't look it! This is taken at Tate Modern in London, where there is a Members' Room with a frosted glass wall allowing light through to the stairwell. A woman with her hair in a bun, sits on a bar stool, waiting for someone else to arrive perhaps... Lets hope that's sufficiently mysterious and poetic. 
Picture

Share

2 Comments
Miranda Coates
8/10/2015 09:30:53 pm

Three wonderful images. I love the intriguing quality of the forest that just stretches away.

Reply
Bree Bites Food link
14/9/2021 01:23:34 am

Great reading yoour blog

Reply



Leave a Reply.

Details

    Author

    Anna Watson: photographer, parent, juggler

    Archives

    January 2019
    January 2018
    November 2016
    October 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    May 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Categories

    All
    Activists
    Celebrity
    Christiana Wyly
    Clapham Film Unit
    Demotix
    Fashion
    Heritage Lottery Fund
    Model
    Motherhood
    Mums
    Old Age
    Peace
    Skin
    Skunk Anansie
    Suffragettes
    WILPF
    Women In Arts
    Working Mothers
    Working Mums
    World War I
    WWI
    Yvette Cooper

    RSS Feed

All photographs copyright Anna Watson, not to be reproduced without permission.  For all enquiries please contact [email protected]
  • home
    • about
    • contact
    • blog
  • portraits
  • News photography
  • travel
  • food
  • interiors
  • Prints for sale