Choices

Something catches my attention, impinges on my consciousness and I stop to gaze. My choice has been to stop and gaze. Gazing is an activity I love. Can the scene I am looking at intently become a resonant photograph or maybe one in a carefully sequenced series of photographs in a book or on the wall? Minor White said ‘Meanings occur in the spaces between the photographs too.’

I choose to set up the camera and the necessary technique is now second nature and it all now comes down to the four most important things in photography which are simply the four edges of the viewfinder. What to leave out and what to include? Choices again. Will the scene work as a colour image or will it be more powerful in black and white? Mental images of the choice between the two form in my mind’s eye.

Colin Dixon