Photographer
I pour through every picture
like an eye-witness at a line-up
Ruling out the usual suspects
Looking for proof of concept
The winners mix with losers
and all start to look alike
They pile up like cold cases
forgotten files on desktops
that don’t do the world justice
__________Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads
May 27th, 2018 11:44 am
Such a powerful opening line! Photograpers are deep and intelligent people who live, examine and capture life with their cameras ?
May 27th, 2018 12:19 pm
I am a photographer too, and often lament at the limitations of my lens to capture what i see. I smiled at “like an eyewitness at a lineup.” Perfect!
May 27th, 2018 12:20 pm
The title at one point was “I Make Work for Myself” because I take too many and they all have to be looked at and most are rejects!
May 27th, 2018 12:23 pm
Yes, after a while one really does not remember who was who, where was where, what was what. I take too many photos too. Luckily when they are digital the DELETE button does the trick.
May 27th, 2018 12:32 pm
I can clearly see it… maybe there are no winners and losers… I start to feel that we are all humans.
May 27th, 2018 1:38 pm
Only a photographer with an expert eye can write this….It’s a talent I appreciate.
May 27th, 2018 1:44 pm
I love how you equate all those piles of photos like cold cases….we take thousands of photos and imagine we may need them….never to get rid of them. It is hard. I have more than 40,000 stored right now. Still can’t get rid of many as once I pour over them, I am transported back and feel too akin to them again.
May 27th, 2018 7:55 pm
Good Grief girl… put them back in the box : )
As always you get me goin’ in thought. Thanks.
ZQ
May 27th, 2018 8:47 pm
I used to work for a photojournalist. It often fell to my task to develop and then pore through the photos. I felt this!
May 27th, 2018 10:00 pm
I take tons of bad ones too! Most never get printed, but the great ones are priceless!
Recently have come in handy at Memorials, like for my Uncle last year.
no one else had pics!
I pay for a storage space full of photos! So many before digital, plus did it in college.
May 27th, 2018 11:11 pm
“I Make Work for Myself” is certainly my approach to photography! LOL
May 28th, 2018 5:38 am
All start to look alike… the perils of digital photography and way too many pictures 🙂
May 28th, 2018 7:17 pm
My complaint, whine, whatever stated beautifully.
Everything sounds better when you say it!
(The joy and sorrow of digital photography is the same thing… so many pictures.)
May 29th, 2018 3:38 pm
And all this time later I’m still on a quest for a decent looking selfie.
May 29th, 2018 4:03 pm
Cold case files indeed.
Years ago I had dreams of becoming a photographer, but unfortunately lacked the skill. I take few now.
Anna :o]
May 29th, 2018 4:42 pm
I had to giggle at this as I have friends and family members who are photographers. I sat working on writing while a cousin worked on the pictures from her latest shoot once. We just kept drinking hot beverage while plugging along at our work all morning and well into the afternoon.
May 29th, 2018 5:09 pm
Such a creative take on how it is for a photographer to make their choice! Love it!
May 29th, 2018 5:28 pm
I have never been a photographer much to my regret at times…all those places and people are only chronicled in my mind…
May 29th, 2018 5:35 pm
I’m not a professional photographer, more of a writer with a camera. I take lots of pictures, document and sometimes cover events for the local paper, which includes pictures. My dyscaculia keeps me from working a camera manually, so professional photography is out.
May 30th, 2018 1:49 am
What a coincidence! I was looking through the photos on my laptop yesterday, trying to free up some space, remembering the days when I used to develop my own! I love the ‘eye-witness at a line-up’ simile, and the lines:
‘They pile up like cold cases
forgotten files on desktops’.
May 30th, 2018 9:44 am
Such a massive undertaking!
May 30th, 2018 8:42 pm
Love the comparisons in this, Colleen.
May 31st, 2018 6:51 am
Facial (semi) amnesia makes all cases feel cold. It’s getting worse. I’m waiting for the day I bump into My Beloved Sandra and ask, “Have we met/”
June 1st, 2018 1:09 pm
Fascinating outlook/inlook – which in this digital day and age, makes it all oddly more alien, in feeling and scope, and sometimes even, sinister (it feels like a “policing” of sorts –
I really like how you’ve captured that sense of dislocation and disorientation, with the line:
“Looking for proof of concept”
– definitely a poem here that is worthy of scrutiny
hope you have a wonderful weekend Colleen