Inspiration: Photography

I love photography. I love trying to capture the beauty of the moment in a picture; I love sharing what I have seen; I love finding the art in the everyday moment. And I love watching others do this also.

I therefore absolutely adore the advent of photo-sharing online, which allows me to see other people's images on a daily basis. They fill me with joy, and they inspire me - not just in my photography, but in the occasional drawing I do (I don't draw often, but I dabble), in the poetry I write, in my blog posts, in what I look for and look at when I walk away from the computer and look at the things around me.

I use Flickr, which I particularly love because it makes following and discovering others easy. It's far from the only one and I'm happy to watch other photo sites also, but since I use Flickr, I tend to find other people on Flickr.

I offer you a link to my favorite photos (by others) as listed on Flickr (click any one to see the photo larger; the thumbnails are quite small). As you can see, I went on a rash of sunrise/sunset/sky photos recently. I seem to be very much enjoying vivid colors also (which I've also noticed in my desire to brighten my desk at work and some of my other artistic play: I want more rich, less bland, in the visuals around me now).

I also offer a link to Flickr's interesting photos in the last seven days page, which shows photos that are particularly "interesting" (based on being listed as favorites, how often and from where it is viewed, tags, comments, notes...not sure of the exact math). This page shows different photos each time you refresh it - something intriguing is bound to show up if you keep looking at it. (It is, of course, also an incredibly good way to waste a lot of time if you aren't careful, provided you like looking at photos.)

Another, very different, photography site is DPChallenge, which is what it sounds like - a challenge, a contest. I'm not that fond any more of the contest aspect itself - it sometimes seems the results are quite arbitrary and also I know that my photography doesn't go in the same direction the challenge does. I'd like to achieve technical perfection and beauty, yes, but I've no desire to spend hours setting up a super-fake shot just so I can be sure I get both, either. I want to capture the world-as-it-is and that is not relevant for this site. However, I still find the site inspiring - I just don't enter the challenges any more! The challenges give me focus and topics at time. And the winning pictures are often gorgeous, interesting, or both - thus, more inspiration.