Since I started up Gabbingaway, I’ve been reading lots and lots of other blogs to try to get what makes a ‘good blog’. Something that’s engaging, fun, and aesthetically pleasing. One thing I’ve noticed is photos that have been taken on a good camera, then artfully destroyed. Those photos where acid bright sunshine has been drained completely by a ‘vintage’ film affect, or wonderful shots of friends drinking cocktails ‘blurred’ to make it look like it’s been dug out of a damp envelope from the 1920s. They’re usually used as a pretentious way to show off something that was amazing in itself but has to look, you know, ‘authentic’.
Yeah, I get jealous of these photos. I am perfectly happy with my cheap three year old digital camera with a terrible zoom and propensity to flash even when I explicitly programme it not to (it usually decides to go off when I am photographing something with an enormous sign next to it saying ‘no flash’, just as a security guard wonders by). I love that my camera picks up all of that amazing Mediterranean light. All my pictures look flat and hot because, well, that’s what France often looks like in the midday sun. I don’t have a camera on my iPod Touch so have no way of snapping a photo and instantly destroying it through Instagram to then share with the world through Facebook, Twitter, the list goes on. Initially I scoffed all of these tools as crutches for the self indulgent, but now I’ve become completely overcome by its appeal. It never used to matter when I was just taking shots of me and my squiffy friends in a night club at university. Now I feel like my photos have to have ‘character’ and look like they’ve been kicked about in a puddle for a bit.
My photos are not going to start looking like this from now on. I can’t afford an iPhone/new iPod Touch, and I’m not getting a new camera until this one draws its last breath. So, to get rid of all of my pent up pretentiousness, I’m going to use Pixlr-o-matic (my god that was a lot of p’s) and edit a few of my photos through that. These will all be deposited in here, from all sorts of trips and experiences.
I might look at those arty farty travel blogs and scoff at the time wasted messing up perfectly good photos, but let it be known that secretly, deep down, I wish I had a photographic bone in my body, an iPhone, and/or knew what to do to give my photos a proper ‘vintage’ feel. I admire those who can. I mock only because I admire, I promise….
Moody Marienplatz
Luscious Luxembourgian river
Odeonsplatz
- Red peppers in Venice market
- Church in Moissac
