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rhythmaningLast week, when I was out with my tripod, I returned to Old St Paul’s, to have another look at Alison Watt’s “Still” – and to try taking some more pictures: using the tripod would allow me to use a far slower shutter speed and so a slower sensor setting, getting images without having to manipulate them too much. I wanted to see what I could do with more freedom with the shutter.
It was a different visit to my last: having a tripod just makes me feel different – more self-conscious, more tied down (despite the greater flexibility it provides); and there were other people in the church, and in the chapel: they were cleaning the lamps in the chapel, and cleaning the church as a whole. So that was another reason for feeling more self conscious. Plus I could get the self-timer on the camera to work properly – the exposures were many seconds, and I used the self-timer to avoid shaking the camera by squeezing the shutter release.
I am not sure if the different exposure makes a difference to the images: perhaps they are clearer and cleaner, but less characterful.
I had gone swimming that morning, first thing; ploughing up and down. I went to my local public pool, since the pool I have been using for the last six month where I’ve been working is being renovated.
Early in the morning, the pool is full of pensioners, and some of them are quite loud characters. One of them, a guy called Jimmy, was one of the people looking after the church. He didn’t recognise me from the pool – he chats with everyone, whilst I chat with no one (although I said hello to him in response to his greeting), and he swims up and down singing – this morning he was singing “When You’re Smiling”. I don’t believe swimming pools are really places for chat or song, but it is as much his pool as mine.
He also talked to me in the church – he obviously felt proud of the building, and the paintings: he came and watched me as I took some pictures, and told me how he thought the pictures looked best without the lights on. (He was right.)
Having a conversation made the pictures feel more human, but also less spiritual – it seemed much less like they were just there for me: it stopped being a private experience, and became public.
Or maybe I was just in a different mood.
It was a different visit to my last: having a tripod just makes me feel different – more self-conscious, more tied down (despite the greater flexibility it provides); and there were other people in the church, and in the chapel: they were cleaning the lamps in the chapel, and cleaning the church as a whole. So that was another reason for feeling more self conscious. Plus I could get the self-timer on the camera to work properly – the exposures were many seconds, and I used the self-timer to avoid shaking the camera by squeezing the shutter release.
I am not sure if the different exposure makes a difference to the images: perhaps they are clearer and cleaner, but less characterful.
I had gone swimming that morning, first thing; ploughing up and down. I went to my local public pool, since the pool I have been using for the last six month where I’ve been working is being renovated.
Early in the morning, the pool is full of pensioners, and some of them are quite loud characters. One of them, a guy called Jimmy, was one of the people looking after the church. He didn’t recognise me from the pool – he chats with everyone, whilst I chat with no one (although I said hello to him in response to his greeting), and he swims up and down singing – this morning he was singing “When You’re Smiling”. I don’t believe swimming pools are really places for chat or song, but it is as much his pool as mine.
He also talked to me in the church – he obviously felt proud of the building, and the paintings: he came and watched me as I took some pictures, and told me how he thought the pictures looked best without the lights on. (He was right.)
Having a conversation made the pictures feel more human, but also less spiritual – it seemed much less like they were just there for me: it stopped being a private experience, and became public.
Or maybe I was just in a different mood.