Left by the Rain
I’m Finally Using Instagram
I’ve had an Instagram account for a couple of years now but have only posted two pictures. That’s kind of how I am with Facebook too. I kind of like the idea but then whenever I start posting it feels fake and pointless.
I don’t think my followers (mostly family and a few friends) really care to see all the boring stuff I do every day or pictures of my kids when they win an award or something. And I hate the idea of bombarding them with a bunch of photos that might not have much context for them. I could be totally wrong about this.
Maybe I would change my mind if my parents and sister were the only ones that could see my wall. Also, on Instagram, I didn’t really know what I should be posting. Should it be just personal family pictures? Artsy pictures that I take daily? A mix of everything? I just didn’t know what I was doing.
I still have no idea what I’m doing. But I do want to put interesting photos and information out for other people to see. This blog is one of the channels I use to do this but there are so many people using Instagram these days that I thought I should at least make another attempt at using it before it becomes obsolete and users abandon it.
So I started a fresh new Instagram account called Ryan Davison Photography and started posting the photos I thought people (yes, including my family and friends) might like to see. I post things that I plan out and take with my DSLR but I’ve also been posting things from my daily walks that I capture using my smartphone. Those smartphone photos usually turn out surprisingly well.
My latest photos have been a series taken of things I find in the gutter. That might sound boring or uninspiring but you would be amazed at the beauty hiding along the side of the road. Like the
For Facebook users who aren’t on Instagram, I also started a Facebook page to showcase the IG photos, photography posts from this blog and anything else I feel like putting there. Hopefully all of this is for a good cause and will be enjoyed. As with most things, time will tell.
A Crack In The Road
The Wonder in the Mundane
I’ve continued my investigations into the gutters of my neighborhood and beyond and found more wonders that usually go unnoticed. I’m not sure how long this will last though. I like looking down to the small things around me but sometimes you have to look up and notice the larger world around you.
The trick is to see it all and not neglect any one part. Of course, I’m much more comfortable droning through life not noticing anything around me. But comfort is boring and doesn’t help you grow. I have to constantly fight the tendency to shut off the thinking part of my brain.
That’s one of the benefits of conciously looking for the minutae around you; finding the wonder in the mundane; enriching your life with the world that’s actually around you that your brain often filters out as unnecessary. So for now I’ll keep looking to the gutter as a way of lifting myself above complacency.
Oil Abstract
Avoiding a Desaturated Life
There really isn’t much color most of the places you go to. What color you do find usually isn’t well placed or interesting and you often have to search for it. Or it’s muted and not very vibrant. You might be able to see more color when you’re downtown but that’s because people are trying to sell you something so they try to shock your senses and get you to say wow, that stands out so I should buy it. But in the
I noticed on my walk today that most of the world around is made up primarily of neutral colors. The houses are whites, gray, and browns. The majority of cars on the road seem white, black or gray. When you do see a lot of colors all in one place they tend to look ugly because people haven’t thought about
Maybe that’s why so many people are into over saturating their photos on Instagram or doing HDR photography on Flickr. They want to pull out what little color they can find and show it to the world.
Now, I do have to admit, today was a cloudy, rainy day in my part of the world. And, it’s still winter so things probably seem more muted and dull to me. Thankfully, Spring is just around the corner and life is starting to spring up around us now that the weather is warming slightly. But right now, you really have to work at it to see it. Here’s a street corner I passed by the other day:
It would have been very easy to just pass by this scene and disregard it. But I stopped because I knew that in most
This is just to show that even though the world around might look colorless, if you change perspective, and prioritize a mindful observation of your surroundings, you can find beauty almost anywhere.
A Dying Breed
There was absolutely no reason why I should start a sketch of a unicorn’s skull. But I did. Here it is.
Photographing in the Gutter
Yesterday and today I’ve taken to the streets and its gutters to see if there are any worthy subjects to photograph. It turns out, there are plenty of things that wash up against the curb. You really have to pay attention to the world around you to notice all that it has to offer.
Most people never consider the beauty of the small and insignificant things all around us. I certainly never thought that the accumulation of street refuse could be as interesting as I’ve recently discovered it can be.
This being the rainy season, most of the gutter subjects were wet when I photographed them. This really makes the color look deep and rich. It also helps to accumulate items together faster and makes new combinations that you might not otherwise see.
Rocky Road
I went out into the neighborhood this afternoon just after a rain and was able to capture some great images in the road and gutter. This was one of them.
Winter path
