What we don't take pictures of

It's funny. 20-30 years ago there existed here in the US, in many, many forms, these drive-up photo kiosks. There was practically one in every supermarket parking lot. Drop your film off, pick it up in a couple days (or sometimes longer) and repeat as necessary. The one-hour labs killed them so they seemed to disappear overnight.

They were common. They were everywhere. And I never, ever took a picture of one. Damnit. Wish I had, now. Nostalgia strikes me, on occasion.

I saw something else today that made me think - again, mundane - my dog was drinking water from a puddle on a hiking trail. I have no pictures of any of my dogs doing that. It's too mundane.

The mundane. Bane of photography until it's gone... what else limits what we shoot, other than utterly boring (today!) subjects?

Wolfeye said:

I saw something else today that made me think - again, mundane - my dog was drinking water from a puddle on a hiking trail. I have no pictures of any of my dogs doing that. It's too mundane.

Click to expand...

That doesn't sound too mundane. That could be good. What strikes me as photographically boring are things like 'modern' (post-WWII) office buildings--flat, smooth, shiny, without much in the way of interesting surface detail. Though sometimes I think abut things like how to get an interesting picture out of things that are not interesting to me or that I don't personally like, like a characterless chain-store storefront.

But I think what you are asking is, what are we basically blind to because it has become part of the background for us, and not the foreground? Probably a lot of things.

People I'm not related to. I can strike up a conversation with anybody but I have an aversion to asking if I can take a portrait of them.

I used to pass by a downtown watch store all the time. Inside was beautifully 1950s & 60s and so I always wanted to go in but never had anything to buy so it was always "next time". Finally one day I went by and the place had closed and was gutted. I took a photo of the exterior one night (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nagoya_boston/2455669516/in/set-72157604979546790/) but I always regret never going in. I try to photograph old buildings downtown where I live in order to preserve them, at least on film.

I don't photograph the streets because in everyday Japan they're so boring and ugly it's enough to bring me to tears.

Talking of things we don't take pictures of I early on in working in professional photography was exposed to two events which caught me off guard.
The first was a woman who hired me to take the portrait of her daughter whom had committed suicide. She was 15.
The second event was not shot by me but was brought to me for processing and printing. They were photographs of new parents with their dead Harlequin baby.
I had never seen a Harlequin baby before so I was shocked by the dis figuration but I was also shocked at the time that these two parents would want images with
their deceased baby.

I hadn't given it any thought as to why someone may wish for this to be photographed, I can understand why now. but when it occurred it was a massive insight for me.

I do find my family album is filled with Golden happy moments, anyone who views it would imagine Ive had a wonderful full life (which I have) however there are moments of sadness
like I Don't have picture of my grandfathers funeral or the time I dropped ice cream when i was a kid and was sad or the time I broke my sisters nose etc...


um this post also reminds me of this.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PIkHs2Fwro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIBX5RrG4Q&feature=related

I have a hard time taking pictures of things that I wish to forget, or that are painful to remember. Such as my pepere after having lost my memere, my aging parents, etc. Difficult for me, and even though I want to remember forever it scares the hell out of me.

And I never, ever took a picture of one. Damnit. Wish I had, now. Nostalgia strikes me, on occasion.

Click to expand...

I think everyone who has every taken a picture always regrets those, "I should have" moments.

Recently a family pet has died, it was a puppy and I'm rather upset over the whole thing. I think I'm more upset over the fact that I never took the time to take multiple pictures of the puppy because I didn't want to waste any film, but now I feel like kicking myself in the head for it. I guess I just thought she'd always be around...

I could never bring myself to take portraits of people either. I always feel uncomfortable over the whole thing, but I always feel as if I'm losing something in the end.

Other then that, the thing that always makes me say, "Dammit I should have done it," is when the lighting's real nice in the early morning/late afternoon and there's always something worth taking, but I never do it because I'm too lazy to get out my camera. :|

In my town was an abandoned and decaying industrial estate, completely accessible with no attempt to fence it off. It had been used as a canvas by graffiti 'artists', and some of it was pretty good. there was an old railway line too.

Last year, i heard it was scheduled for re-development for houses, so i grabbed my camera and tripod and walked down there. It was still intact, and i returned a week later for some more images. I thought of producing a series of the area through the seasons, and it would have been fab in infra-red.

A fortnight after that first visit, i returned to find the place fenced off with eight-foot high fencing, thus totally inaccessible, and the week after, it had been demolished. So i was glad I visited it when i did, but wish to heck i'd taken the opportunity to visit earlier.

My mother's childhood home.I saw the place each time I walked along the St.John river and it would have been an easy bike ride across the train bridge (now walking trail) to photograph it.
The excuses I used now ring hollow as it was demolished last week because of extensive spring flood damage. Idiot me!!

The most mundane photographs of buildings become of value historically, as they are often demolished in the name of progress. Of all the photos I have ever taken, the images shot over time of my local high street and other buildings get more comment and viewings than any other! So shoot away, as you say, things never stay the same.