Recently I have been considering the age old problem of privacy, or more importantly the invasion of it, with regards photography. Feel free to chip in with your input. Be warned this post is long and rambling

When I used to shoot with a compact point and shoot, with a silent shutter, I felt quite comfortable taking candid pictures in the street. It was pretty easy to do as the LCD display lets you shoot from the hip and nobody was any the wiser.

Now my tastes have become a little more refined, it is a great deal harder to be subtle, whilst I love the D200 it screams “camera” in a big loud voice, especially as you really need to bring it to eye level to frame a shot, even then, you can hear the big old mirror clacking away from a mile off. The problem becomes even worse if I have any sort of telephoto lens attached (glares at the 80-200). Personally I hate being photographed or video-taped whilst I go about my day and feel hugely self conscious when it happens and so feel like I really have no right to do it to other people. I see however other people encapsulating moments, making very compelling pictures and think perhaps I need to put aside my own shyness (or to some extent empathy) and take the plunge.

I guess candid photography isn’t my thing, and to be honest I am moving more towards “making” pictures than “taking” them, planning my set-ups, adding my own light to scenes, having people pose and so on. I cannot remember who said “true art is making something perfect from imperfect parts”, but I feel like that is what I want to do all of the time. I feel compelled to take what is naturally there and make it better, otherwise it feels like a game of luck, just waiting around for the constellations to align, for that infiniteth (is this a word?) monkey to rock up with his typewriter.

I think tomorrow I will take out the $30 2 megapixel point and shoot and take some pictures, for fun, no pressure, no thought, completely zen. I’ll report back with my results… (Anyone who read through that drivel needs a prize by the way)…