Thursday, 22 February 2007

Sloth - Seven Deadly Sins Of Photography

If I had not got up I could not have taken this! - Image © 2007 David Toyne

SLOTH: The other sins work together to deaden the senses so we first become slow to respond then drift completely into the sleep of complacency. In short we become a lazy good for nothing photographer.

This is really simple so I'll keep it brief. If you don't have your camera with you you can't take pictures. If you don't go out looking for pictures they will not come and knock on your door begging for you to pop out and take them. If you don't make an effort to find the pictures all around you, while moaning that there is nothing to photograph, then you are guilty of the sin of photographic sloth.

The cure is simple. Get up off lazy complacent backside, put down the pie and turn off the television. Make an effort. No one took a great picture by sitting doing nothing. You'll find Ansell Adams actually walked about a bit to take pictures. In order to practice what I preach I got up at an ungodly hour on a cold and windy day to take the photo in this article. I could have stayed in bed but I personally think it was worth the trip.

NOTE: The sin of photographic sloth should not be confused with photographing sloths which is a noble though slightly obscure pass time of wildlife photographers.

2 comments:

Chris Shepherd said...

This is turning into a rather jolly little series. Looking forward to my favourite...gluttony ;)

Nice one.
chris

Beyond the obvious said...

Quite agree however it did make me think of what Edward Weston once said. Remember he was lugging tons of equipment using a large format camera. Anyway he apparently said something like anything further than 500 yards from the car is just not photogenic. He did manage to find some very photogenic stuff close to where he was parked.

Cheers,
Paul