A Fledgling Renaissance

About 5 and a half years ago I wrote a post entitled “Keeping the Interest Alive”. Within it I discussed how my interest in photography had been waning slightly and I looked at some ways of trying to keep the interest in photography going. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to follow my own advice and maintain my own interest. The DSLR got put down and photography then became nothing more than taking a few snaps on my phone when I visited somewhere. And any processing of these images became just a quick once over using Lightroom with little care or attention taken, and then I just threw them up on Instagram and forgot about them. The interest in photography had all but died, but why?

The Decline

It is easy to cite personal reasons as an excuse; changes to work, personal life etc but those are just paltry reasons. After all, it doesn’t take much time to pick up a camera and take a photo. The real reason is because I just wasn’t getting the level of interest or enjoyment out of taking photographs, so I mostly stopped doing it. Everything felt so samey; find a nice location, wait to get good light, take some photos, put them through the same post-processing, then upload onto Flickr and Instagram. It was now feeling so boring and I wasn’t moving forward with it in any way. I got sidetracked with other projects which consumed a lot of my spare time and, aside from taking a few snaps on my mobile, I basically just gave up on photography. And of course, I gave up posting on this site.

The Seed of Rebirth

But then, something changed. After leaving my DSLR festering in a cupboard for years, I decided to take it out again. Covered in dust I decided to fire it up again.

Why did I decide to pick up my camera again? I’d had a look through my old photos and I maybe looked on them in a different light. Instead of just seeing them as my bog standard photos that a fired out time after time, I actually thought to myself ‘ some of these are pretty good’. Then I started to remember how much I used to enjoy taking these photos. Maybe, as well, I thought that I had invested so much time in learning this, why not do it now. Regardless of the reasons though, I decided to go out with my camera and start taking photos again.

The First Steps

So I went out with my friend and took my camera with me with the intention of getting some good photos. The weather was friendly and I got some good light, or at least my favourite light, which is sun breaking through a darkened sky. So, with my photos taken, and a renewed sense of vigour, I took them home and fired up Photoshop for the first time in years. Although rusty, my post-processing knowledge wasn’t completely gone and I was able to get out an image I was really happy with .

I must admit it was good to get out, take photos again properly again and edit them into a good final image. Did I enjoy it as much as I used too? Definitely not. It still had that familiar samey feeling to it but it was good to produce a nice quality image so I’ve decided to stick with it.

A Few More Tentative Steps

So I have been out a few more times with mixed results. I have had some good photos but some poor ones too, which is just what I would expect. Here are a few of the better ones:

Where Now?

So where am I now? Well, after getting out and getting some decent snaps, I definitely have a renewed interest, hence why I am now writing another post on this blog after all these years. But it has also reminded me of a lot of the frustrations with doing landscape photography, namely being completely at the mercy of the fickle weather. I certainly haven’t managed to regain the enthusiasm I had for this years ago and probably never will. Maybe I need to take my photography in a different driection, i’m just not sure yet. Maybe the break has been beneficial, or maybe it has been detrimental. One thing I do know though is that I have found a renewed interest and I want to get back to doing this again. I don’t know what direction it will take me but I want to keep going and get back to writing in this blog again. So, watch this space!

Thanks for Reading, Neil