Taking Crappy Photos...

The other day we went out for a walk with the dogs along the Brisbane River.  I took my camera along just because.  As we walked I was snapping away at nothing in particular.  I was taking crappy photos. And I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed taking crappy photos.  I mean, it was amazingly liberating.  There was no brief... no agenda... no outcome that I was working towards at all.  I just lifted the camera every now and then and pressed the shutter.

And after some consideration, I think there was more to it than merely the absence of pressure to perform.  There was a kind of 'allowing'...  A genuinely joyous revelling in mediocrity....  Which is far from inspiring, I realize.  But in that moment I wasn't labelling it mediocre.  I wasn't labelling.  I was just playing with a toy that records reality in slivers of time and light.  For a couple of hours I just was.

I guess it's all practice...  I know you supposedly grow in your craft when you're pushing yourself at the edges of your comfort zone...  That's where the 'real' learning takes place.  But that afternoon on the eroded banks of the still recently flooded Brisbane River I found that the edges aren't the only place that growth can happen.