Out For a Duck?

[Mike Farley]

My Photo 365 project has now reached its conclusion and I was looking for that one last hurrah with which to finish. If the year has taught me anything, it is that I prefer to go out looking for pictures rather than setting up something from scratch. Unfortunately, the weather yesterday was not in a co-operative mood for outdoors photography and my initial plan for an inside shoot fell through.

Throughout the project, I have managed to avoid posting any shots of that camera club staple, the duck. True, I have put up some images which would not ordinarily have seen the light of day, but that is inevitable when shooting on a daily basis. No one is that good, so what chance do I have? But yesterday, I seemed to be all out of options. So it was that I found myself by the lake in Dulwich Park, taking shots of ducks, with rubbish light, in the pouring rain. Bah! I did see a heron, but even that was finding the weather so miserable it was just sitting on a branch with its head down. Nothing doing there. Will my project really conclude with a dreaded duck?

[davidc]

If the year has taught me anything, it is that I prefer to go out looking for pictures rather than setting up something from scratch.

Interesting to hear, why do you think this is?

What might be interesting is to go through your shots again and count how many fall into these categories -

Still Life
Portrait
Landscape
Street
Nature/Natural World/Wildlife (so more on the record side as opposed to something pictorial)

My gut feeling is you've done much more in the still life section than the others? Admittedly that doesn't tell us what you LIKE the most but might hint at a preference that "biased" your 365?

I'm planning on doing the same categorisation exercise too so we can share notes!

[Mike Farley]

I am not sure how much such a cataloguing of images would actually tell me that I do not already know. I am aware that I prefer to go out wherever possible and that most of my indoor shots were taken when the weather was against me or there were no opportunities to do anything else. Faux de mieux, in other words. My final shot of the project would have been outdoors had the weather been kinder and I was forced to do something else. Or post that duck.

[davidc]

Do you have a top 10 list of favourite shots of the year?

[davidc]

I am aware that I prefer to go out wherever possible and that most of my indoor shots were taken when the weather was against me or there were no opportunities to do anything else.

I must admit, from what I know/have seen of your work I would have come to the opposite conclusion! I had thought you liked/preferred still life over other types of photography.

[Mike Farley]

I am aware that I prefer to go out wherever possible and that most of my indoor shots were taken when the weather was against me or there were no opportunities to do anything else.

I must admit, from what I know/have seen of your work I would have come to the opposite conclusion! I had thought you liked/preferred still life over other types of photography.

I thought that my still life work had some of my weaker shots, not that I would have admitted as much when posting.

One of the great benefits of a PAD project is being forced to take shots outside of your comfort zone and experience. For me, that included street photography and still life. Having tried them, I plan to continue doing both as part of my repertoire and as additional sources of images.