I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my photographic work.  I guess I can call it that now.  I started out just photographing what was conventionally pretty.  Then I put a twist on it.  Then I was told that I couldn’t just rest on pretty.  The work had to show some kind of photographic skill.  Back then I just photographed scenes.

Then suddenly people crept into my photos.  A lot of people.  A lot of people in general crept into my life, so they started appearing in my photos.  I didn’t notice that shift at all.  I’m not sure why because I do look at my own work.  I guess photographing people is much more difficult than photographing scenes or objects.  I always said people could talk back, but now I also think that you need to get people from the correct angles at the correct time in the correct mood.  Maybe this new fascination with people also comes from the fact that I work in a school.

And sports.  I’ve gone sports mad since I’ve moved here, both doing them and photographing them.  Photographing sports is insanely hard.  It is like a work out for the mind.  Do you look where the action is or do you look where the ball or puck is going?  Going to the hockey games lately has made me acutely aware of both of those things.  Photographing the hockey games is hugely entertaining because you also get to see the side stuff, when the players hit each other or generally annoy one another.

Well, anyway, these photos today, they go back to what I used to do.  They just rest on pretty.  I guess not pretty.  But the pictorialist aspect of photography that used to attract me: