Exposed ceilingToronto, ON
December 2009
[Click here for more night-themed goodness]
I think photographers need to have a little bit of voyeurism in them in order to be successful shooters. It helps to be curious enough about what's going on around them to want to shoot pretty much anything, even if what they're shooting doesn't qualify as worthy by the standards of most average folks.
But that's the thing about photographers: They're anything but average. When those middle-of-the-bell-curve types are averting their gaze, photographers are lifting their cameras, tweaking settings and figuring out how they're going to take the shot.
As so often occurs, the moment in question can be a simply forgettable place at a forgettable time; the kind of scene that we see so often that our minds almost automatically tune them out. They're routine, so they don't need to be recorded.
But a funny thing happens in my brain when I'm walking alone down the street of a city that isn't mine. I notice the routine and I look toward the everyday. Even something as ridiculously plain as light spilling out the window of an apparently converted loft on a slowly gentrifying block somehow convinces me to grip the lens a little bit tighter before I lift it and compose the moment.
Almost a year after I took this shot, I still can't explain why I took it. But not every picture needs an explanation. Sometimes it's enough that you liked the look of the scene.
Your turn: Does every picture need a reason? Why/why not?
