Royal Passage

I shot a fair bit today. It feels like a lot because it was varied stuff. The rest (mostly, I've still got a few left in my back pocket...) can be found over at my flickr page, but this one stood out as my blip for today. Actually, there were a couple of others vying for it, but this was a bit weird.

It looks, to me, like the image has been painted or sketched. There's something aged and washed out to it all. But it hasn't even been tweaked at all. It just looked that way and I just shot it that way. This was taken in Liverpool city centre, in between the shops and cafes, and is something I've walked past so many times and just never saw. Not properly. But I did today. And I'm glad I did.

I loaded it up into Lightroom, looked at it and thought, nah, this one's good as it is. I may feel differently tomorrow, but it was a joyous moment. I love those moments. When you just see things and know what has to be done.

Maybe it's the learning I did earlier this week, on my quiet day of shooting, observing how better photographers think and act. Maybe it was feeling ill. Maybe it was reading into Cartier-Bresson (this isn't a C-B style shot, I know, but it all focusses the mind, which is where the photograph begins, not the camera nor the scene....it's all a response - you don't photograph of, you photograph from).

Note to self - buy a new lens. You know you want to....either the 35mm you love so much, or the 50mm f/1.8 which could be procured more swiftly.

I'm feeling a bit philosophical....I spent today coming down with a very nasty head cold. By now, I'm completely gone. Beat, as Kerouac would say. Illness tends to encourage my philosophising. Or at least my verbosity and waffle. I'll politely shut up now and let you decide which this is.