On Motivation

Thought-through or intuitive? Do your pictures depend on your experience or do you just go exploring?

Three years ago I started a project to photograph all the river crossings across the River Tweed between Kelso and Berwick. This is the story so far.

Its the middle the day in the middle of summer. The sun’s shining and you’re out with a bunch of friends intent on taking some photographs. And the light’s dreadful. What to do?

How a photograph both frightened and excited me when I first saw it. Can photographs really have that sort of an impact?

How a black and white picture of Hebden Bridge by Denis Thorp in the Guardian in 1978 still influences how I take photographs today.

Is it realistic to expect a photographer to concern himself with his viewers expectation about the nature of photography?

Looking is one thing; seeing is another.

When you start out it sometimes feels like other photographers are deliberately hiding the details of their craft from you. It takes a little time to realise that the most important feature of the camera is the viewfinder.

How the obsession with camera hardware gets in the way of creating interesting photographs.

In a blink this book by Henry Carroll, apparently for beginners, with pages of detail on how to choose shutter speeds and apertures resolved how I should be taking photographs for maximum impact.