Perambulating my thoughts on Perambulation

It has been a couple of weeks since my final photograph for my Perambulation Project and I have been reflecting on a years worth of imagery.

6th October 2010

Looking back through the blog posts I made about this project and the goals I set myself way back in my first post on this project (http://noblueskies.blogspot.com/2009/12/well-since-cardiff-i-have-hardly-gone.html). I have come to a number of conclusions.

1. Doing this as a way to improve my fitness.
   Well yes, I would say that was a success. While I won't be running any marathons I did extend the length of my walks on occasion to over 2 hours (walking from Crowthorne to Wokingham) and while on my recent holiday to Southwold walked almost non stop for many of the days, covering over 6 miles a day, 4 days in a row with no worse symptoms than stiff and achy muscles. You might say that's not much, but for me it is what I wanted and what I expected from 9 months of nothing more than short relaxed walks each day.
   
   
2. Exploring my local area.
   Well I've certainly done that, I know more about the fields and woods and other nature spots and footpaths around my area than I ever did before. I've learnt more about flora and fauna, especially with regards to butterflies and dragonflies so I can identify them for posting to Flickr. I have however left out a huge chunk with regards to the urban and suburban areas, with the simple reason being that nature interested me more and I found more things to photograph.
   
   
3. Creating a truthful representation of a place
   Now that is a tricky one. To answer that question I have to go back to my blog post of (http://noblueskies.blogspot.com/2010/02/truth-is-out-thereunder-bush-or.html). I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to give a entirely truthful representation of a place because the photographs taken and chosen are taken and chosen through the lens of my own personal experiences, knowledge and interests. They can only create my truth of an area or subject. Many of the rules I set myself were useful to maintain a truthful representation but they were still too broad, leaving me a huge range of places to visit and images to capture. I didn't realise that this broadness would harm the initial idea at first, in fact it was really only after I had spent all autumn and winter doing it and started moving to new areas because I was finding it hard and a little boring to make the same few walks every week. I also didn't want to photograph the same things day after day, the change would not be obvious and the photos become monotonous.
   
   
   On one hand I am right with that last statement and on the other I am wrong. I do think that the same image day after day would have been monotonous but as a project trying to show the truth to a place I think it would have been well, more truthful.
   
   I think what I have done is create a representation of a place. I don't think photography can ever give a truthful representation of a place no matter how many rules and restrictions you set yourself. I think the next project as I have outlined below will give a representation of a view, I think it will be more truthful of that view than the Perambulation project was of it's place and it seems right to push the idea in that direction and see what conclusions I make from this experience.

4th October 2010

Other things I've learnt are that it is really difficult to keep these things going and find the time to go for a walk everyday. Especially when I was really busy with the elephant and most recently with my internship. Being busy has led me to have to taken walks outside of my directly local (to my home) area and have taken them nearer to work. I have also often had to shorten them to save time.

22nd October 2010

So what about the future of this and the next project.

Well I would like to create a book with the original series. I need to investigate more and see when it would cost me money to do so. But if it happens I'll let you know. Even with it's flaws in the end the Perambulation Project is still showing MY truth of the place and I do want to share that with people.

21st October 2010

I will also not be entirely giving up with my walks. I will still take them when I feel like and when I have time and I will still be taking my camera with me. One thing I have learnt is that it's really improved my photography skills just doing this project and I want to continue to get better and better. What will happen is that photographs will go up when I have them to show you, it will no longer be regular and I may not mention it. You will need to follow me on Flickr to be sure to see new ones :). I also have a few ideas for further alternative photographic and otherwise projects that will require a few walks of testing before I reveal all.

17th October 2010

Finally, as I was saying, I don't think that the idea of trying to find the truth of a place has entirely run it's course yet, as such I propose a new photographic journey!
But this time with more rules.

1. As before I will not edit the photographs in post production apart to crop and resize them for the internet.
   
2. I will have the camera set to Scenery Mode every time. I will use either cloudy or sunny white balance settings, whichever is appropriate for the weather conditions.
   
3. I will go out no matter the weather.
   
4. I will go to the same place every week and take a photograph of the same view.
   
5. I will go out weekly. I decided to make it weekly as daily seemed just unfeasible from a life point of view, especially with the increased restrictions. I also don't feel that the area I am thinking of using will change too much over the course of a week. There would certainly be things I would miss but that is still true if I went out daily.
   
6. I will go out on Saturdays at 12pm. I can bend this rule only if life conspires to upset me. If so then I must go on a walk as near to Saturday as I can and It must be at 12pm.
   
7. I will attempt to do this for a year

Additionally I may take extra midweek photos, as I can foresee interesting weather and events may occur but not hang around long enough to catch on a Saturday. But they might not end up in the project officially, at best they may act as added extra, appendix or special feature or something.

10th October 2010

Well that's it really, last thing to mention is that the photographs in this entry all come from the last few weeks of Perambulation. Including a very fluky shot of a double rainbow with caught lightning bolt.

Anyone got any questions?

19th October 2010