texture
Lately -- within the last 6 months or so -- I've been really focused on capturing texture in my photography. I'm not sure why I've become so drawn to texture; I mean, I've been shooting for almost 2 decades, and honestly haven't really thought much about it, favouring worrying about aspects like colour and light in my shots. But now, for me, texture is everything. I'm riveted by photographs like this one. And this one. And really, every one of these.
I think the reason I'm loving texture so much is that in a way, the texture is what adds emotion and feeling to an image.
It's what adds the depth.
The last few nights, Marcus and I have been watching the Long Way Round, a documentary series of the trip actor Ewan McGregor and his best friend, Charley Boorman, took on 2 BMW motorbikes from London to New York City, via Europe, Russia, Mongolia and Canada. And I have to tell you that while I've not really had an opinion one way or another about Ewan McGregor's work (liked him as Obi Wan Kenobi; couldn't get past the toilet scene in Trainspotting), I have positively fallen in love with him watching this documentary. I mean, here's this guy, the son of schoolteachers, who also happens to be a dad of 4 girls, a husband of 18 years, one of the most famous actors in the world, he has been knighted, for heaven's sake, and oh, by the way -- he loves motorcycles, and travels the world on them (they followed up their London-to-New-York trip with one from Scotland to South Africa).
His life has so much texture.
That might be the secret to a good life, actually: to seek out the texture. Perhaps the goal should be, after living many, many years, to have those you leave behind say, "My God, but she lived with a lot of texture."