Photography creature

Shadows on snow, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

At some point today - while I was driving the car in a traffic jam - I started to ponder a comment by Andreas Manessinger on the photography skills: "I know these days, and somehow, sometimes being distracted by things we care for or things we'd like to not have to care for, sometimes, somehow our cumulated experience runs on autopilot and - produces a gem. Not really by its own, because it's we who have put our soul into it, tended and nursed it for years, but sometimes, somehow it can make it on its own."

Recently I have had interesting experiences with the "photography muse" - if there is such a thing - or more probably that part of the brain involved in taking photos.

For example, I'm innocently driving past an open field where the snow is starting to lighten a bit thanks to the morning sun reaching through the cloud cover, but the lamps along the walking paths are still on, making yellow z-shape tracks across the field, and there is a little bit of snowfall which blurs the distant trees into gray-blue abstract shapes.

And it is as if some creature sitting on my shoulder is suddenly wide awake and is shaking in eagerness and shouting out loud: "A photo! A photo! A photo!" And it is difficult to not to stop the car right there (where a car should not be stopped) and walk towards the edge of the field and start taking photos.

These things happen every so often, and sometimes I even manage to do some photography. But unfortunately it is not always that you produce a good result, and the disappointment can be great.

Then there are those situations when you don't really feel any great anticipation, just take a snapshot, but miracuously the result is something you couldn't have expected, a glimpse of reality revealed to you when viewing the photo on the computer screen.

A difficult beast, the photography creature. But well worth the nurturing effort.