Unintentional self-imposed limitations

"The limitations in your photography are in yourself." - Ernst Haas

I stumbled upon this quote by Ernst Haas today while reading something online. It struck me that this is exactly how I feel toward my own photography lately. Often on weekends or evenings after work, I'll head out on a photo outing with my DSLR in hand to capture whatever catches my eye. On some of these outings I'm accompanied by my partner or our dog (or both). Other times I'm flying solo. Sometimes I'm in the car. Sometimes on a walk with the dog. For the past year or so, I've not made time for these outings as often as I used to, and when I do go out, I feel like I'm searching for that "perfect photo" moment. A subject catches my eye, I take several photos, but inevitably the photo I capture is never quite as good as the way I had envisioned it. I'm stuck in a creative rut. A humdrum photography routine. Something I need to snap out of. The photo included here is one I captured on a foggy morning dog walk in the neighborhood. It was taken with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app. A quick snapshot, but one I'm pretty pleased with.

I recently joined a local photography club. I'm still getting to know people, but the first meeting I went to had probably 50 or more people in attendance. I talked with several people and quickly realized this is going to be a great group. The monthly meetings include time to mingle and chat before a guest speaker shares his or her experience (last month was a professional photographer sharing photos from his recent travels), a photo contest centered around that month's theme and inspiration to do something great. Exactly what I need.

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A Long Absence

It's been five years since my last blog post. Five years. I realize how pitiful that is. Why even bother with a blog if I'm not going to update it, right? Very good question. I started out with good intentions, but...well, you know what they say about good intentions. Part of the delay was due to my procrastination in writing a new blog post. Sometimes writing doesn't come very naturally for me. I struggle with what to write about. Other times an easy topic comes to mind, but my nit-picky nature comes out and it feels like it takes me forever to find the right words. By that point, my interest in the topic has waned and I've moved on to other things. "Squirrel!" Various life events happened during the past few years that resulted in my website and blog being pushed to the back-burner on my priority list. I got married (after waiting 20+ years for it to become legal. YAY for marriage equality!). I changed jobs in 2015 (same organization, different te

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Where does a subject's right to privacy begin? A "peeping Tom" photographer/artist, Arne Svenson, in New York took photos of his unsuspecting neighbors through their windows. The photos (including those of children) are now featured in a gallery exhibit in Manhattan. Needless to say, the subjects are not pleased. According to the photographer, no invasion of privacy took place because the subjects in the photos can't be identified. I call B.S. on that. While faces may not be shown, I would bet that someone who knows some of the people in the photos could easily recognize them. I do agree that if you want your daily activities in your home to remain private, then you should close your curtains or window blinds. However, you should also be allowed to assume that your daily activities won't end up being turned into a gallery exhibit, raking in thousands of dollars for the so-called artist. And as this article points out, people don't pay huge amounts of money

Alice Thompson Photography

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