Bog Blog

I know this is becoming a bit like the Bog Blog at the moment but I have found such inspiration in the Bog that I can't help myself.   I love the light and colour you get in these moist and dank places.  Don't worry I'll get over it but there may well be some further Bog Blogs before the infliction passes.

Spending more time in the bog

Another day, another day.  Yes it has been a damp and dismal Easter Sunday.  Great.  I spent a couple of hours in the local bog,  taking more photographs.  I have finally cracked the flash with the G9, I found out that the flash works a lot better with the setting on Tv.  Now I know I should have known this but I didn't - always learning something, again if I had read the instructions this would have helped.   Never do!

I had the place to myself and it was great.   This large expanse of woodland and flood meadow is a photography heaven, that is if you enjoy making photographs of damp and decay.  Needless to say I do and the weather was just perfect.  It gave the leaves a wonderful glean, their verdant colours look really great in the flat light.   Back in the studio for can really enhance the colours and and make some fantastic moody photographs.

Messing about in a bog

Where does creativity come from?  I am sure that there have been CAT scan studies of the brian that indicate the part of the brain that lights up when you are being creative but that doesn't explain anything.  Is creativity an expression of the soul?   Is it the manifestation of the a greater spirit than the human race?  Or is it just a random chance - something that has evolved along with our ability to walk on two legs?   I am sure that there are more enlightened people than myself who may be able to provide some answers to these questions but it will never be the full answer.

So why am I asking these questions?  What am I seeking the answers for?   Well it struck me that I have been going through a streak of creativity at the moment.  It is almost like a strange clarity.  I see potential photographs in everything I do.  Someone said to me the other day when they were looking at my recent output that they would never have seen the things I had to make photographs out of them.  This is not to say that what I have produced is good, bad or worst of all indifferent it just means I have felt an urge, an itch to take and make photographs.  This is at a rate of over 30 a day.  

Today has been no exception.  I spent 2 hours this morning wondering around a wonderful local nature reserve.  It is tucked away next to the M1 and cut into by a busy railway yet even these do not prevent the place from being a magical place.  It is an ancient bog, according to the notice board at the entrance this has been forming since the last ice age.   The trees that make up the wood lands at the heart of the bog have that strange brilliant green lichen growing all over their exposed roots and branches.  At times it was almost like a scene from Lord of the Rings.  Yet all the time you could hear the roaring traffic and the passing trains.   As I walked through the bog I just came across photographic opportunities - it was intoxicating.  Now not all of these worked but they still inspired me to create wonderful photographs.  But why?   Why was I so inspired?  Why was I so creative?   I suspect the answer is blowing in the wind.