On my few days unplugging, I noticed something strange happening. The sun was shining, the atmosphere was upbeat due to most of us having 4 days off work, yet as I looked around the campsite it was filled with people sat feet apart but looking glumly into their phone screen.
There was social interaction going on, but much of it was circling the phone screen. Sharing funny things they have found, or talking about doing a particular thing they had seen online.
For the last few months, I have been trying to work out why I can’t be bothered with tech any more. I have felt these feeling before, but always come around again when something happens, or I just come out of the rut. Don’t get me wrong. I have long given up writing about it in any great details, I leave that to people better at it than I, but this time is different – I just can’t be bothered with it at all.
One of the massive advantage of having a Fujifilm x100v is being able to take it anywhere in my pocket. Well today was one of those days! I knew my wife would spend ages in Primark so I wandered around for 45mins or so. I need to go back to Nottingham with nice light for a full day as there is loads to shoot and the people are awesome.
At the end of last week, I went off the grid. We packed our car full of camping equipment, turned all the gadgets off , placed them in a draw, and went into the wilderness. Well, that’s not quite true, we were nowhere near wilderness on a camping site with showers and entertainment – however we were as far as we can realistically go with Lucie’s disability.
Four days, spent doing nothing but walking, talking and enjoying each other's company.
Even though I shot about 200 photos over the 3 days we spent camping, I ventured out today to shoot some street photography. It’s like mediation for me and I faced a bit of time out. The weather was a bit rubbish, and the light a bit muted, but I just wanted to get out and shoot a bit for something to do.
This was the first time trying to shoot in the street following my switch from my beloved Sony 85mm to 35mm on the x100v.
You might have heard this term, commonly referred to as KISS, it is used in training for almost any subject you can think of. Indeed, it has become a bit of cliché but KISS relates to so many things and points in life that it should be a mantra to everyone. Keep everything in life as simple as possible, always.
Call it minimalism or whatever you want, but again it has raised importance in my life to do with photography.
Do I try to force myself to write something, or let it come back on its own? The hard to take fact is that after months of having loads of inspiration on subjects to write about, the juices (and to a certain extent motivation) have dried up.
The truth is that I don’t want to force anything out just because I feel I need to. In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald.