PHOTODORK

It may not come as a huge surprise that I am not really the outdoorsy type.  Sure, I like mountains and trees and water.  I do my part to be “green” and eco-friendly.  It’s just that most of the stuff that I really enjoy – photography, knitting, baking, reading, yoga, dorking around on the internet – can pretty much be accomplished indoors.  That, and even seeing the sun out the car window gives me a mild sunburn.  And so its fairly rare that I spend the better part of the day outside.  Yesterday was one of these days as Dylan and I accompanied my dad and first mate Bessie (a 15 year-old Bordie Collie mix) on a boating trip at Horsetooth Reservoir.

It was a beautiful day for both boating and photography.  The clouds managed to keep the sun from being too intense, but it was still bright and warm.  I had to coat myself in sunscreen twice, but really, there was no avoiding that or the light of sunburn I sustained anyhow.

I’m actually not one for landscape photography, but as that’s what I had handy I gave it a shot (or 142 shots, to be precise).   And as I shot the afternoon away (and ate hot dogs and chips and brownies and jumped into water that was a bit too cold…I don’t want you to think I was attached to my camera the whole time), I thought a bit about the different reasons that we photograph.  There is commercial photography, journalistic photography, artistic photography, as well as keepsake photography.  Well, that’s what I call it.  Most people take keepsake or souvenir photos of the important moments in their lives.  Birthday parties, graduations, vacations, and gathering of family and friends all fall into this category.

Of course, the categories can mix and mingle.  Yesterday I shot for both artistic and keepsake reasons.  Part of this was because its really hard for me to turn off the part of my brain that is constantly looking for an assessing situations for photographs.  What I was really interested in though was remembering the afternoon and journey.  While the images may not make it onto this site, there are images of my dad and Bessie and of Dylan because when it comes right down to it, that was the part of the day that mattered, spending time with people (and dogs) that are important.