Category: thinking about photography (Page 1 of 3)

On simple cameras

17 March, 2021 / Sidewayseye / 0 Comments

In my post about my journey of cameras I briefly discussed whether a camera is just a tool and what this little word ‘just’ meant. In this post I reflect a little more on this question and why simplicity is an important attribute.

A journey of cameras

15 March, 2021 / Sidewayseye / 1 Comment

I’ve never thought of myself as being a victim of ‘gear acquisition syndrome’ but looking at the number of cameras that I have, perhaps I am …

Returning to pictures

5 March, 2021 / Sidewayseye / 5 Comments

What makes for a great photograph? I was struck by something I read recently:

Are words and images immiscible?

9 February, 2021 / Sidewayseye / 7 Comments

Some people think that images and words do not mix, or that words detract from or limit the power of images in some way. In this post I simply want to raise some questions about this …

Kitchen table pictures

4 February, 2021 / Sidewayseye / 0 Comments

I think it was Adlai Stevenson who said ‘You know, you really can’t beat a household commodity – the ketchup bottle on the kitchen table’. There is a genre of indoor photography that I call kitchen table photography, although often, kitchen tables do not feature …

North Dakota

9 January, 2021 / Sidewayseye / 2 Comments

I have long been fascinated by the American Road Trip. Brought up on a literary diet of Kerouac, Steinbeck and Pirsig and then aspiring to the photography of those photo wanderers Frank, Friedlander and Shore, I had always wanted to experience the back-roads of rural America.

Some useful apps for film photographers

5 September, 2020 / Sidewayseye / 0 Comments

Just a brief note on some useful smartphone apps that I use for my film photography (if that’s not an oxymoron) .

A Philosopher’s Photographer: Wynn Bullock

15 August, 2020 / Sidewayseye / 2 Comments

As a life-long learner and a ‘mature’ (i.e. old) student of Philosophy I find much to appreciate in the pictures and words of Wynn Bullock. Alongside Minor White, a more thought-provoking photographer you will struggle to find.

“Searching is everything – going beyond what you know. And the test of the search is really in the things themselves, the things you seek to understand. What is important is not what you think about them, but how they enlarge you“. ¹

Thomas Joshua Cooper – our relationship to things

21 June, 2020 / Sidewayseye / 0 Comments

It has always seemed to me that a photograph (and perception) is never just of a something. It is of ‘a something’ as a certain type of thing. Cooper’s photographs remind me of this insight.