Becca Bland, a photographer from Brighton wants us to stop and admire the world about us. So driven is she by this idea, that she is proposing a non photography day on the 17th of July.
A photographer from Brighton in southern England is urging the people of the world to take a day out and stop taking pictures.
Becca Bland has launched “non-photography day” – planned for 17 July – through a website together with a sticker and flyposter campaign in various cities in England.
Ms Bland told BBC World Service’s Culture Shock programme that the idea has “gone global” with interest in Manchester, Leeds, London and Brighton, and even further afield in Australia and Japan.
Ah, now, here I have a problem… I’m all for taking time out to just be, to look at the world and experience the moment; be it the balmy warmth of a still summer evening, with the cats gathering for their crepuscular activities or that moment when snow falls for the first time in winter. To take in the scents of summer flowers and to look up and watch the high clouds joined by distant vapour trails; or to grab the camera and sneak out to the common early on a winter morning with the frost crunching underfoot, to take in the delicate frozen filigree on the foliage before the sun evaporates it and it is gone forever.
I’m all for that. I do it on a regular basis; just stop and take in the moment. Sometimes, so taken am I by that moment, that I get the camera out to capture it. How else would that Larzac sunrise ever be caught for posterity?
Yes, that one.
I can go along with Becca’s sentiment when she quotes D.T Suzuki:
‘The thing is there before our eyes, for it refuses to be ignored; but when we endeavour to grasp it within our own hands in order to examine it more closely or systematically, it eludes us and we lose it’s track’
What I don’t need is organisation. I don’t need to be told on a particular day to abstain from a particular activity because I have an aversion to being organised by others and, which is more, I really object to people telling me what to do, or not to do:
She added that people really committed to the idea could join the “non-photography police” – a group who are telling people about the day when they see them taking pictures on the street.
No! No! No! If I want to take pictures in the street on the 17th of July, I will – and woe betide any “non-photography police” who try to stop me. My response will be somewhat sharp, so don’t even think about it.
By all means take the time to savour the ephemeral moment, just don’t spoil it with organisation and don’t just do it on July 17th. It is best enjoyed because it is snatched from the daily routine, because it is a brief stolen moment that will never come again and, importantly, was not planned.
This is very puzzling. Perhaps Becca Bland takes too many photographs, as a professional photographer might well do. Personnaly, I recon I take too few; the majority I take are of other people, at their request, using their cameras: and why not?
What comes next? Don’t look; just feel? Don’t go there; just imagine it? Don’t meet, just phone (or write)?
And on a more positive note: “Felix Domesticus” arrived yesterday; approval all round, though others were sceptical prior to delivery. Longrider’s Nerfertiti and Ceasar look like, and are reportedly very like, our Holly and Buddy. Well worth photographing at every convenient moment; 17th July or not.
Best regards
I’m pleased you like it. And, thank you for buying it. :rock:
I shall be in Poland on the 17th… taking many pictures. 🙂
the point is not to capture it for prosperity
I’m aware of that. I vigorously disagree with it. Just as I vigorously disagree with pretentious attempts to motivate people into not doing something for a day to make some obscure point. The picture used in this posting would have been lost forever had I not captured it. So, should I have just looked and let it slip away, or (as I did) grab the camera and enjoy it again and again?
The latter, I think. No, I don’t think I know. I make no apology for capturing the moment and will do so again – including on July 17th should I so wish.