May 2020 is National Photography Month. I do consider myself a Creative, but my creativity mostly manifests in words. I have however snapped the rare “wow!” photo with my digital camera or smartphone.
Photographic Evidence
Generally, I try not to think too hard when taking a photograph. I hit the shutter button and hope that the auto-correction features of my little digital camera or my iPhone’s native app will create something that captures the moment that I wanted. Lovely thing about digital photography: it’s all just pixels. If the shot is terrible, I just delete and try again. (Note: I gave this same philosophy to Eric, my airline pilot and hobbyist boudoir photographer in We Three.)
While working as a photojournalist for a coastal paper a quarter century ago, I had to capture people and sites to accompany news stories. This was so long ago I developed my film in a dark room.
Now I prefer to capture nature, often including no people at all. I take a few on vacations, park strolls, or other getaway trips, but I certainly can’t call myself a “shutterbug” because I prefer to exist in the moment and experience the trip rather than stop and snap a photo. Half the time I find I’ve forgotten my camera in the hotel room, or my phone’s battery is too dead to snap a photo. LOL
The photos you see scattered throughout this post are mine and were captured on various trips or random walks. Some of the nature ones are available through Shutterstock. Most however do not have enough pixel-depth to qualify for distribution on that site.
“Sunburst” (pictured below), however, is one I’m particularly amazed by. It was snapped at Cocoa Beach (Florida) during August 2007. A once-in-a-lifetime shot. I literally just pointed my phone at a group of circling gulls overhead. I almost don’t remember really registering that the sun was there (I wear transitioning lens glasses. I was just hoping to capture the birds when I hit the shutter.
Other times when I was shooting toward the sun, the light would be auto-corrected, muted, or nothing came out at all. This time, however, I got this.
At only 8.5 KB, it’s too small to really use in anything, but I treasure it.
There’s a few I’ve done of my pets that please me, seeming to capture unique “attitudes” in the animals.
Like this one (below) of our most recent family dog, a pitbull mix named Rocko. He’s an “old man” now. And this posture, with his forepaw draped and tucked next to my spouse’s hip, seems to express his personality very well.
~ Lara
Lara Zielinsky 