This is an overly processed shot from my phone that i’ve been sitting on for, well, a couple of years I think! It’s Christchurch in Dublin, with the tree in blossom – which is why I was reminded of it after seeing the tree outside our office start to bloom this week :)

Anyway… I was blown away with the response to my shoot what you love post, and one particular subject came through nearly all the comments that I’ve been mulling over since. I’m hoping to try and deal with it now. It’s also a subject that I did a lot of picking & poking at when I started my original ‘thinky’ blog and one of the things that I did notice when I came back to it a couple of years later is that I’m seeing stuff in a different way, purely through the passing of time and building of experience, just like the way I came to appreciate the ‘shoot what you love’ concept.

So what am I going on about anyway?

Quality.

Being a ‘better’ photographer, taking ‘better’ pictures. I put that word in quotes because the point I’m making is that it isn’t an objective quantification. It depends on your own specification of quality. It depends on whose specifications of quality you want to use! Who are you trying to please?

I think there’s a fairly universally agreed definition of ‘good’ for when you’re just starting out. When people pick up a DSLR for the first time and they say they want to be a ‘good photographer’ what they generally mean is that they want to be able to control how the camera records things, what’s in focus, what’s in the frame, how it’s exposed, that sort of thing. But when you get handle on that stuff, how do you measure the quality of your photography beyond it? I used to agonise over whether I was any good, in the grand scheme of things, and go looking for reassurance from other photographers. The easiest way to do that is somewhere like flickr, where you upload a shot (or a few) and wait nervously for the comments and the faves. But it’s a game that can be cheated by adding your pictures to groups that solicit comments, being nice to others so they come and leave you comments, and then on another level, simply shoehorning your photography into the mould of what attracts attention on there, and looks good from a thumbnail. If you want to play that game and that’s your definition of quality – or success – fair play to you and don’t let me tell you otherwise. But it might leave you feeling unfulfilled, I know I was.

That’s why I wouldn’t say that there’s a universal definition of good photography, there’s only what makes you feel like you’re being authentic to yourself, and producing something you feel proud of. You get to decide the criteria – when Jamie asks whether the pictures of his favourite beach are ‘better’ than those of anywhere else, I have to respond with “what do you want from them, and which does it better?” rather than trying to mark them against some universal scale.

If you’re looking to make money out of it though, or even just make a name for yourself, you have to figure out who your audience is and pander to their tastes. Of course the trick is to match up that work that is authentic to you with an audience who appreciates it, and then I suppose you’ve found the holy grail…

So, last year we had great fun hunting out weird and wonderful points for the Irish Photo Rally and we attended the awards presentation dinner a few weeks ago where I realised that as a pillion, I could also put forward an entry of my own for this year.

I was inspired by some of the quirky pictures submitted by other entrants to add my own twist, and decided that I would like to have my picture taken knitting at each of the points. Then I came upon the ‘sky scarf’ project, where people knit a row of a scarf each day, in a yarn the colour of the sky at the time. Since there are only 24 points i decided that I would get myself some chunky yarn and needles, and do a couple of rows at each point, in the colour closest to the colour of the sky at the time from the selection of blues (and mostly greys!) I was able to get my hands on.

It’s a bit tricky doing something like that in Ireland, though, when the sky isn’t the same colour for very long at all! In fact you can see that I started off with a lovely deep blue (it’s a bit more on the turquoise side but that’s the best I could get) but as I finished taking my pictures and packing it away, the clouds rolled in and it started to hail. Then it started to sleet. Then we tried to make a hasty escape and had to stop the bike so Ryan could wipe SNOW off the windshield! We had planned to get 3-4 points in that day but at that moment all we could think of was getting back home. But even though Saturday had cut us short,  we headed back out on sunday which gave us a mix of sunshine and clouds. This photo shows my ‘fluffy clouds’ yarn colour ;)

So far we’ve visited a castle:

been up a mountain:

and driven through some fairly decent mud to get to an abbey in a field:

…and from looking at the pictures from people who have already had a good start on this year’s points we’ve a rickety wooden bridge and other similar delights to look forward to still.  Hopefully I’ll be posting about them as we go, and build up a bit of a ‘motoscarf’ journal :)

Back in the days where I used to hang on every flickr comment and agonise over how to improve my photography, I remember getting the advice to “shoot what you love” (Do you see what I did there, it’s a heart in the photo and it’s nearly valentine’s day, haha …no? Oh. Never mind).

The basic thinking behind it seems to be that if you care about your subject, it’ll come through in your photos. Since i’m very much and always have been an aesthetic photographer, I would quite often choose subject based purely on their visual characteristics because I do primarily see my photography as a way to create something that’s nice to look at and can bring a little bit of happiness through that. But I did start to lose steam after a few years, because as beautiful as flowers and forests are, everyone’s seen them before, everyone’s seen better photos of them than yours (mine!), and I started to wonder if it had a point.

This post has been a long time coming because I’ve been thinking about a few things, mostly about how I’m predominantly shooting/posting knitting or crochet these days. I noticed there’s a post along the same lines from January last year and at the time I put it down to the season, not getting out and about to shoot a variety of stuff, and predicted that things would naturally change as the summer came in. I did think about how I’ve gone away slightly from my original blog intention which was photos of the slightly unreal and ethereal side of life, and I was going to apologise but if people don’t like what I post, they’ll go and find a blog that has what they do like. I do suspect these days my audience skews more towards my craftsy friends than my photography friends, whether it’s a cause or a symptom though I’m not sure!

To bring me back to my original point and pull it all together, these days I’m getting infinitely more satisfaction from shooting something that I’m interested in from an aspect other than just photographing it. I understand what it is that goes into each stitch, or even before that: the choosing of pattern and yarn, or the ultimate: designing the whole thing from scratch – you start out with a single strand of yarn and an idea and you make a Thing! It’s quite something. And to be able to be sympathetic to that when I’m taking the photos and notice things that a non-crafter wouldn’t (I want to see the selvedge edge/garter tab cast on/picot bind off, you get the point) I can provide the people who put the time into their creations with a more worthy record of them. I hope.

I suppose when you do specialise in playing to a particular audience to that degree, it’s natural that you’ll also alienate others. If I’ve learned one thing in my years behind a camera, maybe it’s that it is actually OK – even preferable – to do that. If you’re trying to please all the people all the time, you’ll never really find your own little groove to settle into. Maybe some people don’t want a groove, in which case you can ignore everything I just said…

This is my mum’s wee yorkie. Every single time i visit, we go for a walk around the old graveyard next to the castle and I attempt to take pictures of her cuteness. But…

The autofocus on this camera can’t keep up…

And, she’s off! The little madam.

One day, I’ll manage it. One day…

I was quite happily working on some knitty valentine card shooting, and Louis didn’t like being left out so he took one of my props captive. He’s not been very happy since I pinned a santa hat onto his head at christmas so the least I could do was give him a bit of attention on the blog…

Stay tuned for those cards, too ;)

Some of you may have noticed these pics already, up on the pattern page on Ravelry. And doesn’t the name ‘Phoenix’ suit the fiery red and the ruffled edge of this shawl? It’s so squishy and lovely. We had lots of fun doing “I’m so cosy” poses, and showing off how fab it looks when you wrap it around and get to show off multiple layers of that lovely edge:

I must have been on a colour kick after the bleakness of the dark days of winter because I was just loving the red of the shawl next to this fantastic yellow satchel, doesn’t it just jump out at you?

Anyway, if you’re a crocheter, get thee to ravelry and buy the pattern now ;)

Oh my, it’s good to get out in the fresh air taking some photos after being stuck inside and in the dark for so long. And when you have beautiful silk lace crochet to shoot, all the better!

The colour is definitely perfect for those first hints of spring we’re eagerly anticipating – delicate yellow like those lovely dwarf narcissus, reminding us of the sunshine.

Speaking of which, we got a visit from the sun during the shoot and I had to have a go at my old favourite – backlighting. But it seems that the flare didn’t want to play and looked a bit more like some sort of alien invasion… still, she looks so angelic, doesn’t she?

I was going to share the other shawl in this post but I think it deserves a whole post to itself, so you’ll just have to wait for that one. Not too long though ;)

I’ve mentioned before how I sometimes struggle with styling and props, and last year I got a chance to spend a wee while with some ladies who are absolute experts at putting together pure eye-candy, in every sense of the word :)

Pearl & Godiva are who you talk to about hiring vintage china and other beautiful stuff for your wedding – or even have the whole thing styled for you!

And then, Iseult of thecakestand.ie can conjure up all sorts of tasty, pretty things to finish the scene perfectly. It’s fairytale stuff.  They managed to transform a tiny, boring cubicle into a corner of pure confection :)

I am such a complete sucker for all of the tiny details:

Now, if only I could have them on hand for all my shoots…

There was one day when it wasn’t grey and miserable so we got out and about and my dad took us to a train station where they were restoring steam trains (or ‘stoomtreins’ – possibly my new favourite word) from as far back as the forties, and we were able to wander about and take pictures and nobody paid us any attention, it was great. Apparently the whole place is staffed by volunteers, and they do lots of trips around local routes which are mostly farmland and forest – as well as wedding receptions, which seem to be a much less alcohol-fuelled event over there!

They even had a turntable (is that what you call it?), with a fantastic wee control box-shed type thing:

The station itself was also very picturesque,

- and it was still decorated for christmas…

But it was closed :(

And of course, they had a pile of coal and a fork which I seem compelled to take pictures of whenever/wherever I see them.

There are things like that that aren’t necessarily very exciting but when you see them, you can’t help yourself. Like catnip for cameras. Like cameranip. Or maybe not, that sounds like an injury :/

Well, that was an explosive end to 2011 – the Dutch really take their fireworks seriously!And a perfect view from ooh, about 5 steps from the sofa, with no expensive drinks or taxi home. That’s my kind of hogmanay ;)

But now we have emerged, blinking, into the harsh flourescent light of the office and it feels like a year ago already since we slept until noon and got up to graze on chocolates and watch hours of telly. And do a spot of selfish knitting, after the chistmas presents were complete…

I hope your 2012 will be filled with lots of nice things, hopefully ours will include another vacance en moto (my french is awful, i just made that up but you get the gist), spending time with family & friends, and lots and lots of knitting!