A Good Eye For Photography

“You have a good eye for photography” the woman in the camera shop told me after she saw some of my early photos posted on line.

It might sound rude – but I laughed out loud – but maybe not for any reason you might think of.

It was getting near the end of 2012. A couple of weeks before I had bought, with her help and advice, my first “real” camera – a Nikon DSLR. I had gone back to the shop, a real bricks-and-mortar camera shop, the likes of which are few and far between now, to buy a couple of filters or something. I can’t remember exactly what now.

After I had stopped laughing at her compliment, she asked me what was so funny about what she had said.

I said to her “…well, as I actually have only one eye – you’re right I do have a good eye for photography“.

Having lost the sight of my right eye when I was about 14 years old, I’ve grown accustomed to having only one eye so I very much take that minor handicap for granted.

But that’s another story and I am digressing – as I often do…

Essentially I was just taking photographs of almost anything that happened to catch my eye (pun intended). Everyday things that may go totally unnoticed by other people, or not envisaged in any other context in which they existed became my photographic target.

I have to admit that the power of the crop in post processing proved very useful as I learned, or thought I learned, more about the “rules” of photography.

powereline isolators against a blue sky - a good eye for photography — **Insulators – late 2012**

So having been reminded of having a good eye for photography, I searched deeper through my archives to see if this was true – or if in fact I believed it.

I found a small collection of black-and-white photographs I had taken between 2017 and 2023 that I had prepared for a story here on my blog for September 2023. For some reason the story never made it on to the blog, so I thought I’d share the photographs with you now.

All the photographs in this series were taken in colour but with the intention of presenting them in black-and-white, so whether they confirm I have a good eye for photography is ultimately up to you – the viewers.

I had originally called this collection Vintage Black And White, for reasons which I hope are obvious.