Hey! You’ve got a camera…

This snap was taken (made?) near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, the southeast corner of Central Park in a most wonderful mist……and posted it on Facebook.  It drew this comment:

How do you do that?

I replied:

I didn’t do it. I saw it, that’s all.

Now that so many of us carry cameras as part of our phones, more and more of us find ourselves in the presence of visual beauty, excitement or curiosity with astonishing frequency.  Holding the camera up to such provides the opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate what we might have simply bypassed otherwise.  As we become increasingly able to record not just what we see but also what we feel, wow!

Sometimes it’s the kind of beauty anyone looking in its direction can’t miss, like this one:

Sometimes it’s more personal or even mysterious, that whatever-it-is that demands we shoot:

These three snaps were made within a twelve minute period.  There were ten others in the series as well.  Each of those ten had it’s excitement and appeal when I pressed the shutter.  They were great fun to shoot.  With the closer examination of post-processing the excitement was gone making them “Fun at the time–only.”

Digital photography has removed so many of the obstacles that previously stood between the casual photographer and the photographs.  No need to carry extra rolls of film, breathe chemicals or live near a drugstore.  All you need–and it’s still hard for me to write this–is a phone and a free app or two and you’re set to join in.

So do so!

Have fun!