Quotidian
As I’d hoped, the M9 has started to get carried around when I head out. I don’t know quite what you’d call such a camera. Walkabout camera, maybe. Quotidian camera, that’s the phrase I tend to use in my head.
The reason I think of it that way is that when I copy the previous day’s images off the SDHC card in the morning, I’m seeing lots of what I think of as quotidian photographs – photographs of things I see in daily life. The above photo, made in a coffee shop in Ashland, Oregon, is an example. I was waiting in line, looked around, saw this countertop/shelf, lifted the camera, and made that photo.
I don’t know that such photos are going to turn into a larger body of work; I suppose at some point threads will emerge and I’ll follow them along, and I’ll get something cohesive. For right now, though, they seem to be a mishmash – a way to experimenting visually, playing with tools and compositions and objects in ways I haven’t done before.
it seems to me (but i may be way off base here) that you’re saying your new photographic tool has a profound influence over the kind of images you are inspired to make.
i have only 5-6 years of photographic image making experience, and i’ve used several different kinds of (digital) cameras and so i kind of get how different tools affect how and what i photograph.
i guess i’m just surprised by the degree to which the use of new equipment alters the way you see and make images. i know it is not the case, but it almost sounds as if the camera is the determinative factor in the creative process.
anyhow, thanks for a wonderful blog. i really enjoy the site.
-nathan
Paul – Weird – I was relieved to read you were in Ashland… knew where you got coffee the instant i saw your image of the detail of the counter/wall before reading the post. Disturbing almost… visual memory is a strange thing. (btw Try Noble Coffee next time you are in A-town).