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October 2003
"It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary," according to painter/photographer David Bailey. Ok David, whatever you say.
So, there I was, having ridden an old bike half way around a lake in the coal mining district in "far eastern Germany", standing on a tiny shore waiting for THE LIGHT...mid-autumn and basically disgusting weather, heavy clouds portending rain and I with numb feet and no raincoat, vacuously smoking cigarettes in a vain attempt to keep warm. Plan A is to attempt to photograph the slightly surreal landscape around these recultivated torn up regions in a more or less classical way meaning simple composition with good or interesting light. It also means not a lot of opportunities, but certainly requires a lot of patience. A long ride followed by maybe a long wait, then a ride back in the dark possibly without a picture cos it just went grey and flat or I was too late anyway (bearing in mind that itīs getting darker earlier over here now). Then it happened, "just like in the movies", suddenly the clouds broke up sending brilliant almost horizontal rays across the lake to bounce off the far shore creating sharp contrasts of whitish sand and multi toned autumnal trees against a dark sky with bizzarely highlighted clouds and dark water full of sparkly bits...all a tad difficult to explain really, but what I was getting around to here wasnīt really anything to do with Mr Baileyīs witticism - the thing was I suddenly realised that I had been in Germany for five years, mostly stuck in cities in which I had been quite happily finding my photographic subjects, and had forgotten how beautiful the landscape in nature could be (despite it being sort of artificial in this part of Germany)...yup, I was dumbstuck, maybe even a bit homesick.
"We donīt know how lucky we are, mate" as Fred drawled all those years ago.
Err, go All Blacks,
Righto,
Dean
"It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary," according to painter/photographer David Bailey. Ok David, whatever you say.
So, there I was, having ridden an old bike half way around a lake in the coal mining district in "far eastern Germany", standing on a tiny shore waiting for THE LIGHT...mid-autumn and basically disgusting weather, heavy clouds portending rain and I with numb feet and no raincoat, vacuously smoking cigarettes in a vain attempt to keep warm. Plan A is to attempt to photograph the slightly surreal landscape around these recultivated torn up regions in a more or less classical way meaning simple composition with good or interesting light. It also means not a lot of opportunities, but certainly requires a lot of patience. A long ride followed by maybe a long wait, then a ride back in the dark possibly without a picture cos it just went grey and flat or I was too late anyway (bearing in mind that itīs getting darker earlier over here now). Then it happened, "just like in the movies", suddenly the clouds broke up sending brilliant almost horizontal rays across the lake to bounce off the far shore creating sharp contrasts of whitish sand and multi toned autumnal trees against a dark sky with bizzarely highlighted clouds and dark water full of sparkly bits...all a tad difficult to explain really, but what I was getting around to here wasnīt really anything to do with Mr Baileyīs witticism - the thing was I suddenly realised that I had been in Germany for five years, mostly stuck in cities in which I had been quite happily finding my photographic subjects, and had forgotten how beautiful the landscape in nature could be (despite it being sort of artificial in this part of Germany)...yup, I was dumbstuck, maybe even a bit homesick.
"We donīt know how lucky we are, mate" as Fred drawled all those years ago.
Err, go All Blacks,
Righto,
Dean