Every picture is a memory. Every time we press the shutter on the camera we are freezing a moment of history so we can preserve it forever. It sounds monumentous doesn't it, but it's not: Facebook will certainly tell you otherwise. I log on each day to see the myriad of photos that my so-called 'friends' vomit onto my homepage. Not only do people upload a sequence of the same picture - I have two of them so why not use them - but the other people in the picture will also post their versions of it. The result? Monster albums clogging up the internet providing the CIA with plenty of material should anyone need blackmailing in the future...


It is an age-old question, though. How do we make our holiday photos interesting to the general public? How do we step away from the necessity to have 'been there' to really appreciate someone else's pictures? And, while we're at it, how can we remove this insane fashion for de-tagging and portraying this hideously false image on Facebook? There is no hard and fast solution - no tried and tested method to solve this, but I think I may have hit upon a compromise.


May I invite you to read on...

Friday, 13 January 2012

Arbroath Smokies

One of my favourite pastimes is taking photos. I love capturing pictures of beautiful sunsets or taking an atmospheric city-scape. These photos are the ones that are framed over your fireplace as soon as you buy your first home that your friends admire when they come over for coffee.

For those photos you enjoy the result more than the process of taking them. Admittedly you probably enjoy being wherever it is, but when the moon rises between two Dolomites, there isn't much hysteria when you pull your camera out and snap the shutter.

I'll say it again, then. One of my favourite pastimes is taking photos - the actual act of taking the photo. The result will not end up on my wall, but it will be a fond memory. This is what happened in Arbroath on May Band Holiday, 2009. I went for a day out with two of my friends and together we must have taken 300 photographs. Most of them show us in embarrassing poses, doing silly things fom non-too flattering angles.

Of course they all adorn Facebook and have been liberally peppered with comments from all and sundry, but when the day comes and I finally marry, I will not ask my husband if we can display the picture of me making an 'I' with my finger in the middle of a 'To Let' sign on our living room wall.

Witty, I know...

This brings me onto my next picture in the series:

Dancing in the Street
Arbroath, May Bank Holiday, 2009

I love this picture. It looks like I'm dancing on the bollard instead of falling off it clumsily. It's not a great picture to be honest: it's a little over-exposed and the colours are a little dull. It doesn't matter to me, though. The photograph is not to be enjoyed, but the memory of what happened when it was taken...
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Location: Arbroath, Angus, UK

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