Having a photo buddy is good, being in the company of other photographers is even better, you pick up things, learn a few tricks and see things from different points of view.  Often enough, whenever Nikhil and I are out on a photo-walk, I will see him suddenly divert and take aim at something, and out of my mouth would pop a phrase like “the bike and the tree, eh?” or “the pattern of leaves”, or “the red block and the white blocks caught your eye”.

I am usually right, and I admit that I saw what caught his eye (either before or at the time), I see what it is, I see that there’s a photographic opportunity, but most times, I don’t see the composition that he sees.  I’ve come to the conclusion that , at least for now, it’s just not really my thing.  He does a marvelous job on those patterns and juxtapositions, on odd combinations of subjects, I don’t “see it” as he does, and that’s fine, if we all saw things the same way, there’s be nothing special in any of our photographs.  I think that photographers understand to a good extent what I mean, but the regular Joe, or photo-tekker-outer, or snapshot artist, may not.  It’s like Street Photography, there’s an art to it that not everybody gets, certainly not me, and I’ve tried some before and may try more in the future.  A good photograph can tell a story in just one scene, the problem I see these days is that not everyone can read 🙂 and even less of us are good story-tellers.

This one is a good example, I saw it, I noticed things like the contrast in colours, the symmetry/non-symmetry, the textures, the geometry, but I wasn’t inspired to take it, I just wanted to do it to see what I could come up with if I pushed myself.  I know that in some circle it has merit, but I just can’t bring myself to say it’s a good shot.  🙂