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I like the phrase A picture is worth a thousand words even if it is overused and a cliché.  

Today I am inviting you to visit my gallery. The formatting of how it displays is still a work in progress, and of course it remains a work in progress because there is always something new to say.

I never leave my house without my cellphone.  As with most of us it has become a part of my essentials.  Recently I have felt the need to activate my ‘find a phone’ in case my son has to come looking for me. But most importantly, although I feel like I am cheating on my camera when I use it, I keep my phone with me for that moment when something catches my eye.

When I bought my camera, I started researching the editing programs available. Like most things the options are endless.  I follow a few professional photographers. Their pictures stunning, I am in awe of their work. They can spend hours editing one photo with sophisticated software to produce flawless photos – a level I will never get to. For a while I felt inferior, a fraud. How could I possibly call myself any kind of photographer if I don’t invest in extensive editing programs?  But I learned a valuable lesson over this past year.  That is not me. That is not who I am.

I have a book, a gift from a friend, called “Street Photography”. I like the title. It sounds raw and edgy, hip, or cool (although using these words to describe it probably makes me sound frumpy, outdated, and old). I do not think I can truly call myself a ‘street photographer’ as someone in the professional world of photography might use this term, but I like it and I feel it kind of fits.  I am after all out on the street, and I am taking pictures.

I am taking pictures of things that catch my eye. Sometimes for the simple beauty, the uniqueness; and sometimes, to preserve a moment, or share a memory.  I have also learned that I like my pictures just as they are, raw and untouched.  I want to tell a story as I see it in the moment, not after blemishes are removed, colours highlighted, and lighting adjusted, because after all we can’t do that in life, we have to take it as it comes.

Perhaps instead of thinking of myself as a ‘street photographer’ I should be thinking of myself as a

Just me, just as I am photographer.

Part of the fun is watching people around me when I am out with my camera, or cellphone.  When something catches my eye, not knowing how it will translate into a picture until I get home, I will take the shot from many angles.  I have slowed traffic, had people stand beside and me look up, slow their pace, double back or change their course, curious to see if there is something important that they missed.  I wish I could have a second camera to catch their expressions and actions.

Today I invite you to have a look at my collection called “Seeing Red”.  I took my camera with me on one of my short routes, what normally takes 20 minutes took me 90 minutes, and I came home with 274 pictures. Completely lost in my lens, I forgot about work, I forgot about my problems, I forgot about the chaos our world is in.  I left home without a plan, which quickly developed into a photo shoot of finding things that are red, and although unintentional, I ended up with a picture, featured in this post, that I feel depicts the current climate.

I never know where my thoughts will go when I step out into the world, I just like to be open to the possibilities