Sometimes it's just too wet, too sunny, too damned cold to bother leaving the house.
The alternatives that lie around you when you lock into that space aren't exactly thrilling, because, truth to tell, you no longer really see them at all, just like those relationships where, as in Billy Joe Royal's song, the only time we're touchin' is when we're passin' in the hall.
But even so, the mind usually doesn't close down and go to sleep; sometimes it's impossible to go to sleep even when you are as tired as you have ever been – it just doesn't come or you simply lose the off switch. Same result.
But there's always photography, if you're lucky, and through that sweet bitch you can find something new, that you realise you hadn't been aware of, existing right under your nose. In fact, though I live on a so-called holiday island, the motivation that brought me here, sunshine, sand, sea and beautiful clichéd picture locations, now usually stands in the way of what I find most interesting from a photographic perspective. I've become possibly over-fond of gloomier days, find dark clouds reflecting in windows rather appealing, and pray for the day when it'll be cold enough for condensation to run down the windows of the local bars so that I can pretend to be in New York in the 50s, and shoot people scurrying by with red umbrellas. No prizes for sourcing.
However, that doesn't tie with those days when I know I'm just going to make my own lunch and spend hours wondering how to pass the journey to bedtime. Sometimes, I'm not even aware I'm going to do that until I find myself, keys in hand, at the front door, and suddenly stop, say eff it, I can do as well here. Of course, I can't, but it doesn't matter; I just know there's nothing out there that I want on that particular day, least of all people.
For some reason, straight after eating, dishes piled in the sink, is often the moment that I find myself pulling out the D200 and wandering around the old familiar. And I can get lost in it, truly lost in a little dwam where my mother's painting, bought during one of her car trips to Tuscany with an old friend from Perthshire, and now hanging somewhat indignantly (the painting) between a topless b/white and a couple of colour printed landscapes, becomes a real location within which I can do some silent and undisturbed photography. Lens wide open, hand-held, light from outside bouncing all over the place, it's a tiny adventure inside my head. And blur. Yeah, I love blur; it shrouds in mystery to lay bare what's actualy real inside your mind. Folks should enjoy it more. Nobody who isn't occupied with commercial/scientific/clinical reproduction of some sort need slip into the prisoner of war condition that technology forces upon one. The hell with megas this or that; who cares? Only you; and you probaby don't want to understand why, the why being that it helps you to avoid a deeper truth that mightn't be to your liking; it's an evasion of the final moment of truth: the image. I'm not being smug: I've been there, done that and got the D700 which, to most folks, would mean the retirement of the D200. Irony lies in the fact that it's the D700 that lies quietly in the dark most of the time, only seeing daylight when I need a wide, film-days lens to give me its raison d'être. I can't tell you why I really, really have the newer camera (though I admit to having tried to rationalize my choice), especially as I am perfectly happy to add grain all by myself. I suppose it comes down to a moment of madness. The last thing the amateur needs is to be a collector.
But as I was saying, the snap within a snap is always available if you seek it out. And you don't have to step outside when you can't be bothered with the hassle of what's out there.
And it doesn't have to be your mother's old painting, it can be a cupboard, a door or even the corner of your kitchen. Personally, I find lots to think about with wooden shutters, especially when they are wet with rain. Apart from varnishing the damned things, that is, which I do but detest doing.
Not a natural digital fan and especially not a Photoshop devotee, I can thank my lucky stars that they both came into my life. Why? Because I discovered something I hadn't quite accepted before, that I've been touching upon in this note: it doesn't always have to be about what you shoot, it's also possible for it to be about what you can do with what you shot. That opens up a line of enquiry that transparency film didn't, if only for the cost and relative finality of the act as performed inside the camera.
Explore both your inner spaces.