It’s been another chasm of a gap between posts. Blogs are read less and less. My interest in them has waned too. Most importantly my interest in photography has too.

I hinted last year at the fading of my interest. Really I’m a bit despondent about the subject but especially my own efforts. They really do feel like an effort at this point.

Don’t get me wrong I like my images and to an end that’s all that matters. As a vfx professional though my standards are fairly high. I’m often complimented by clients on my lighting, framing, sense of scale and so on.

It seems the further I get into my career the more people feed back on each of my shots and the longer each takes to hit final delivered status. Seemingly each person needs to chime in resulting in work that can feel a bit like design by committee.

My issue really is photographic judging, and by extension modern photography, suffers from an issue with the type of feedback. It pushes us all towards the same images and I’ve little energy left to deal with it.

Subjects are most appealing on a third, ideally facing in to frame. Heaven forfend if it’s placed near the edge or facing outwards – a technique to introduce tension in storytelling.

A blade of grass or dirt on the lens is removed from the top left lest it become a distracting element when one’s eye enters frame. How dare it exist! (Aside – consider the written languages where words scan the opposite direction – their speakers would see something else observing the same image.)

Focus must be critically sharp, distortions and abherrations removed. In vfx they’d be meticulously added to match the footage – the lens character is appreciated rather than fought.

Highlights and shadows must have detail. Jesus I hate this one with a passion. No they mustn’t. Even in colour. Watch Severance on AppleTV+ for a great example of high and low key work where sometimes there just isn’t detail.

Natural History subjects shouldn’t be worked up with areas cloned out, backgrounds altered. They should be true to their original subject. Did you know all establishing shots of Earth in space for the Planet Earth TV series are CGI? Additionally you can bet your bottom dollar that crew and equipment are removed from shots where their inclusion in shot was unavoidable.

Essentially I’m done trying. I take some good images but I won’t be working them up to please anybody now. It’s all a fruitless strain towards the homogeneous ideal of what a photograph is.

Lastly I’m writing this as the sun rises on a new day. I’m keeping a watchful eye on my newborn son, hoping he doesn’t wake his mum who sleeps very little. My hopes for him are that he sees the world through his own eyes, recognising that which makes it great and elevating areas that aren’t. Together his mum and I will teach him to respect others, not to denigrate them or marginalise them. Hopefully that way if he chooses to take photos they will be soulful and not bowing to others’ ideals. He sure as hell won’t refer to models who are grown women as ‘young ladies’.