Sunday 20 March 2011

Photographs

I'm just back from a snowboarding holiday in Austria. My traveling companions took many photos and had fancy cameras, whereas I took only a handful and have never owned a dedicated camera – using only my mobile phone on occasion (which does take a reasonable 5mpix picture if conditions are right).


I am not sentimental, and the photos I take tend to either be artistically pleasing or purely to put on facebook to placate family that protest if I don't. That means that the photos I take are either of people (this seems to be what others want to see photos of) or desolate vistas – one of the reasons I enjoy snowboarding is that, if visibility is good, from the top of a mountain in the Alps you can see giant snowy peaks stretching out into the distance.

Mountains and clouds and big rocks and starry skies are the scenery that impresses me most; I find it kind of liberating to feel how small and temporally fleeting I am. Some may find that feeling depressing, but it isn't simply that I feel I am small and ephemeral, I feel how insignificant everything in life is – everything in everyone's life – and that makes me feel powerful because I know that most people get caught up in their mundane existences and never realise their true place in the world.  It reminds me that I am different to other people; and by 'different' I mean 'better'.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It reminds me that I am different to other people; and by 'different' I mean 'better'.

Well said.

Anonymous said...

is that you in the pic?

heeeyyy, what about us?? We're better too - in our way. Anyway, used to go skiing a lot, almost died once. My favorite part of skiing? accidentally wiping out one of my friends.
LMAO!
What I don't like about skiing in the mountains though, is the cold. But i do like eating snow on a hot day. :D

Anonymous said...

oh, and the word to describe that thing that overpowers us, is the sublime. Used to be my favorite word, and i just remembered, i told my friends it was my fave word whilst sitting, guess where? on a ski lift going up a mountain. :)

Steph said...

Nice pic!

Sometimes I feel 'different' also ;)

ResCogitans said...

i gotta admit it isn't my pic - i honestly have better ones, but there is technology that will search the internet for where a pic appears so i decided not to use one of mine that may be traceable back to my true identity ;)

Haven said...

I love pics of starry skies and celestial phenomena. I like pics of forests and vibrant living colors. Pictures with possibilities. Or ones that remind me just where I am in the Universe. One more creation: no better, no worse, just here.

@notme... Definitely different. I'll grant you that. I enjoy my differences 9 times out of 10, but not sure I'd consider the craze better haha though it does provide an alternative persepective which is more than most people can see.