Digital cameras are great. I love not having to mess with dark room chemicals. I love the instant gratification of seeing my photos right away. I love never having to worry about having the wrong film in my camera for the situation. I love having the capacity to take thousands of photos without changing a memory card. Well, I mostly love that. Sometimes the set number of exposures on a roll of film makes for more creativity by placing a goal or a limitation on the photo taker.
This winter has had me thinking back on a lot of the photos I took when I first picked up a camera. I’ve also seen some incredible creativity coming out of photographers in their first year or two of business. That sense of play and experiment and exploration is something I want to get into more on my own, so I’m making it a priority in 2024 to photograph more often for no actual purpose other than to make photos. Subjects will change, locations will shift, but the limitation I’m sticking to is that I’ll take 36 frames with one specific theme.
Starting it off on January 2, 2024 I photographed dead flowers with a macro filter on my 55mm lens. This is not innovative or new or any sort of artistic revelation. It was, however, something I’d thought about photographing as I watched the light do interesting things with the bouquets on my counter and just taking the time to stop and make the pictures was such a good way to stretch sleepy art muscles.
So here they are! 36 photos of dead flowers. In macro. Some b&w, some color. Can’t wait to see where I go from here 🙂
