Monday photo shoot

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Find a picture in your files that is technically bad, but is still interesting to look at. By "technically bad," I mean things like people are partly out of frame, your subject is out of focus, everyone has red eye, people's heads are cut off, there are in appropriate blurs, so on an so forth. But even so, it's still an interesting picture to look at.

   Well, I don't have very many pictures that could be classified as "technically bad." I don't take very many because I worked in the photographic industry for several years and am very familiar with photography from both a technical (how a camera works) and conceptual (how to take an acceptable picture) standpoint. That's not to say that accidents don't happen, but I tend to delete those in camera almost immediately.

Edited to add: you know, having just read this back, it comes across as pretty darn arrogant. I'm not trying to say that I don't take bad pictures. I'm just trying to say that I don't take very many pictures that are bad for technical reasons. Artistically bad pictures, on the other hand, account for a good 85% of all the photographs I take.

   So, my photo, much like the one John used to accompany his entry, is more of a happy accident, than a technically bad photograph. After a soccer game a couple of years ago, I was taking pictures of Matthew and a couple of his friends. They were, as ten year-olds are wont to be, somewhat rambunctious and playful. One time, Matthew threw up his hands to block the camera. Luckily, the auto-focus had already locked on his face, so his hands are blurry, but his face behind it is in focus. Also luckily, the camera caught one of his eyes, and the corner of his impish grin.
   I think this picture really shows Matthew's personality, even though you can only see about 20% of his face. This is one of my favourite photographs of him. I like it so much I often use it as a wallpaper on my computer.

tags:Memes, Monday photo shoot

p.s. The next scheduled upgrade of the AOL journals software goes live Tuesday morning at 4:00 AM. If it resembles the beta version currently running (and Journals Editor Joe says it will), then I will wake up tomorrow with banner ads across the top of my journal, and a complete inability to add or edit entries. So, if I don't update for several days, don't get too concerned. I'll just be over testing Blogger.com's software.

A late addition to the Monday Photo Shoot:
   I just remembered this shot I took in Italy last year. We were driving down the Autostrada from Messina to Catania, on our way to visit Mount Etna. At one point, just north of Catania, there is an open portion of road with a great view of the mountain. I quickly stuck my camera out the car window, and snapped one frame. When I looked at the picture later I found that a road sign was positioned just so. Another, as Wil said, 'serendipitous' occurence.