Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

I'm not much of a photographer.
I have to admit it.
I love good photographs.
I would love to take great photographs.
But in my heart I know I am a snapper.

I think I must be lightblind.
I can see colours perfectly well thank you, but can I see shadow and light when taking photographs? No !

All I can say, is thank goodness for digital cameras. This wonderful technology has at last made taking photographs more cost-effective for me. No more under-exposed or over-exposed or out-of-focus photographs need be developed. And if I really must save the less than perfect, then I can always try to fiddle my errors away with Photoshop or FastStone.

In truth this is partly a problem of laziness. I have talked myself into believing that it is a complicated technical process which my brain simply refuses to grasp. And while it is true that my brain is refusing to grasp many of the ideas, it is also true that 'a little application goes a long way'.
Perhaps it is also about patience, and my lack of it.
I really don't like doing things badly. And I do photographs badly.

But every now and then I take a photograph that has some aspect about it that re-inspires me to really try to learn the skills. This morning while loading up some old photographs to Flickr I came across one of those images. It's a nonentity of a photograph. A snap taken to remember the moment. But today I looked at it again in the largest image size Flickr does, and was struck by a number of things.

• The beauty of the colour green.


• The intelligence and elegance of Earth's creatures.


• The quirkiness of natural design (see the "rolled up sleeve" look).


• The body language of listening, alertness and wariness.

All of these things made me want to do justice to such a beautiful subject matter, and not just settle for my quick snap.

The image that inspired this observation can be viewed here for you to see what I mean.