Beach

Three ships

I often go out to Richmond Beach, where I go to the library, then down to sit in my car alongside the railroad tracks. I look at my books, hope a train will go by, and watch activity on Puget Sound. Sometimes I take a picture or three out the car window. Sometimes I get out of the car and get more serious about the photography.

This blog is mostly about the "more serious about photography" images, but this particular image stuck in my head, and made me pause while browsing, more than many of the "serious about photography" images.

The photo magazines and books tend to have a ranking of photographs - of qualities that one should aspire to.

This isn't one of those photographs. It lacks many of those qualities.

Even the photograph I was after, with the right-hand ship still in the gap between the derrick and the piping, would not have qualified.

Even a photograph which had somehow avoided the intrusive sailboat mast in midframe would not have qualified.

Yet somehow, for me, this is one of my more successful photographs.

Because it is, and because I am not entirely sure why, I am blogging it today.

Until I understand why this image is important to me, I won't be able to do as well with my photography.

Because ultimately, my photography needs to be for me first, and then for my family and friends. The editors and writers of the books and magazines shouldn't even be entering into the calculation - their role is only in suggesting some things I should take into consideration, and helping me with the skills and information that will help me achieve my own purposes.