New public project

I am starting a new project based on the x365 thing I've seen some people doing. Instead of writing about people I know, I'm going to write from a list of random objects or ideas and give what I think are some good things and bad things about them.

So basically, "To quote Wally exactly, here's some stuff that I like."

This is open to everybody, but private entries will stay private.

1/365: Photographs

The thing that I like the most about photographs is that they give me a reference point I don't usually get from actual experiences. I like to take a lot of photos when I'm on vacation so that I can remember what everything looked like exactly. It's hard for me to remember things like that, because what I come away with is usually a single exaggerated moment that's distorted through my opinions and feelings. Sometimes I secretly wonder if I have a bit of a memory problem in that sense.

And while precise photographs and the desire to remember things exactly as they were are useful and normal, photographs reassure me that I wasn't crazy to think that the door we passed at this landmark was red, or that it was a cloudy day.

Still, I like weird and distorted photos for the sake of art, too--and sometimes those trump realism in a way that's sort of indescribable.

The problem with photographs is that people take too many. Luckily with digital cameras we don't print off the bad ones and waste resources, but I'm sure we still look through folders of .jpgs full of red-eye, bad composition and stupid expressions. Photography is really meant to capture something important, not 47 blurry out of shot photos of your boyfriend's ass.