Your journey may not involve traveling the world or an excursion across Russia. You might see your journey to the post office every Monday as particularly relevant – or the journey from your bed to the kitchen in the morning. Note the journeys you go on regularly and reflect upon them.
Now photograph them. Remember to aim for consistency in your pictures. If you choose to photograph all the charity shops you’ve visited in a week, try to photograph them all using the same camera, lens, standing position, lighting, etc. This will help keep your project honed to the subject matter rather than you, the photographer.
Having walked the Grand Canal a number of years ago and loved the experience, I decided to carry out this exercise on a recent multi-day walk along the other great canal in Ireland, The Royal Canal. While my walk along the canal wasn’t an everyday journey, it was one that was carried out over a sustained period of time. I used my Fujifilm X100s with 23mm lens (approximately 35mm equivalent) to aid a consistent set of images. There was a great sense of freedom placing one foot in front of the other, noting and photographing the bridges, lock gates and wider vistas, which changed rather slowly as I progressed. Following this experience, I can really appreciate the “sense of subtle internal and physiological change” which Paul Gaffney (in his series, We Make the Path by Walking ) describes “one may undergo while negotiating the landscape” (Gaffney 2018).
I feel that my journey along the canal afforded me the opportunity to explore the subject of beauty through my camera without the time pressures that I often place upon myself. The way in which the landscape gradually changed with my progress, provided me with an abundance of time to access, understand and appreciate what I was looking at. This was a very rewarding exercise in observation.
Reference
Gaffney, P. (2018) Paul Gaffney [online], available: http://www.paulgaffneyphotography.com/We-Make-the-Path-by-Walking [accessed 23 Aug 2018].
Identity Place Photos 