Whistle Tweet Whistle Tweet Whistle!!

I spent the morning wondering around local woods with an amazing chap called Terry Spratt who could tune into the bird song and tell us the names of the birds that were around and then point out to where they were. (Just like someone might be able to decode my birdsong hello - yes it really is an apt code - answer next week sometime!) I love birds, perhaps in the past some of my energy existed in birds, who knows. I’m a bit lens limited for the little ones, but I can just about get away with a big crop on the web.

” a very pretty little bird on this mornings walk”

Listening to all that wonderful birdsong, the complex communication that was going on all around me in the trees got me thinking, about how we communicate, let others know what we are up to, what we are doing. Is blogging a human birdsong? - what a transition!! CBC I’m waiting for the call! So I’ve been flying in and out of other peoples doors and windows to see how the experts do it.

This led me to a number of conclusions when seeing 500000+ hits on some sites. Perhaps I should visit my site all day from my wife’s computer !!!!!!!! No I’m honest really I am! But I did stumble across something of a strategy to get the hits without resorting to sly marketing, a sexy avatar or being naughty with the keywords. Lets have a schedule, I mean it almost seems to be a rule, like a “rule of thirds” for blogs. So lets make it like a magazine here at “The Compete Picture.”  So here it is, my first draft, well if you click continue!

 

• The Monday Muse - containing inspired, life changing waffle like this!
• Top Tip Tuesday - How can a photo-blog be complete without explanation of “exposure.” Let me tell you what the Button next to the letters ON-OFF does; I’m sure you want me to tell you that I can prove that there are no rules in photography. OK maybe I will explain ICC profiles one day, or confess all about HDR.
• Wondering Wednesday - I could tell you all about the living in Prince Edward County, Ontario the greatest place on Earth! What a plug for my photo tours and workshops that would be!!!
• Thursday - Well I do need to take some pictures for friday, and my son has Beavers too in the eveneing!!!!!!
• Image in Focus Friday - where I blatantly post at least 1000+ images - straight off my camera - to block up the tag search and annoy you into visiting my site. Then I can leave no info about them other than plug that you can buy online at “these sites” You know Fine Art photography, it’s so easy isn’t it?
• The Saturday Surprise - “Exactly what it say’s on the Tin” (might need to be English to understand that one - so it’s a link) Probably the other 500 images that I didn’t bombard you with on Friday, kind of repeat advertising like they do on TV. First the long advert, then a quick refresher before the movie continues, just incase you forgot that “SuperDo” make this in the 5 seconds since the long advert, or confused it with the rivals DooperSo.
• Sharing Sunday - Links to all those other millions of web sites and other annoying things.

 

Perhaps I’ve been unlucky and just found influence from the wrong sites, but anyway today is Thursday. OK that makes life easy - no more post - the end!!!!!

Byeeeee Steven

 

So I shouldn’t be writing tonight as I sit here in my home office / studio. I shouldn’t tell you that I can detect smells of my favourite ”sausage and leek” supper coming from the kitchen, where, through the open door, I can see the smile on my wifes face as she prepares my favourite supper.  I can hear what sounds like Go Diego on the television, and there are a lots of excited shrieks coming from my youngest son that suggest he is up to something I should really check out!

You wouldn’t know that outside the sun is shining and the light is just starting to soften into  what I expect will be a lovely golden end to the day. The birds are signing, the dogs are barking - let me feed them….  ….. Dogs are now quiet. 

On a schedule I wouldn’t be able to share with you “almost live” why I have a hand made tumbler containing some good aged scotch and a very significant letter on the desk beside me. A letter that if I ever become an iconic 21st century photographer and have a museum built to honour my achievements, would be on display somewhere prominent, I dream on!!!!!!

It’s really surreal, I’ve known this moment was coming, but right now it is here. “Steven, we’ve concidered the medical reports, we are sorry to say that it is  Game Over.” Please see attached letter to give to your employer, of which I’m technically not allowed to blog about. But in the future airports will mean joining the que with everybody else at security, no longer having great big windows to watch the world go by, no access to the most exiting in-flight entertainment screens, buttons and other interactive knobs and levers, oh nearly forgot no pay………………………………. My word, and you know, just like the letter that started my career, its on horrible thin paper and has been photocopied wonky.

Sad, yes, but actually the sadness was in the dark days of the past. When you realize that the only way out is forward, not back, you tend to want to move on as quick as you can. So the beginning of the end game of Life part one is actually something of a huge relief.

Life part 2, well it will be different, almost opposite to part one. Careful diet, regular sleep and expensive tablets will be part of it, a family life and speaking through photography will be the other. I can see my little blog being part of the future too, but today your reading about the now. And isn’t that part of what blogs were meant to be about. Writings that are in the present, not with all the hindsight about today that comes with the sunrise tomorrow?

In my kind of photography, when I wake up in the morning I never know what I might see during the day. How will the light work, who will I see, where will I find myself? No schedule to operate by any more, divine moments and creativity are gifts that come when they are given, not when they are asked for.  

As the sun sets beautifully at the close of another day I can say that there won’t be a schedule here, just like my viewfinder, you’ll get what you get. Sometimes this, sometimes that, sometimes nothing new at all! So you’ll just have to keep checking in. But I will always give you part of me, some kind of picture, and eventually you’ll have “the complete picture.”

And as you’ve stuck to the end here is one that means a lot tonight:

“Final Departure”

 

Take Care, Steven

Be Free, Be True, Be Creative 

www.stevendraperphotography.com