I can honestly say that prior to lockdown/social isolation I never really bothered that much to take my camera to our local park. I think when I started my 366 Project it did briefly accompany me on a few park trips, where we used to go in the afternoon in the summers to kick the ball with Oscar and let him crawl on the grass as our backyard has none. But ultimately, it was not an ‘exciting’ place for me to take pictures.
With limitations on travel due to coronavirus, I’ve felt stuck in a bit of a rut as a photographer. Usually I take photos in exciting places, with beautiful scenery and gorgeous light. By comparison, my local park with its ugly wire fence, dull sports oval and scattered gums seemed a bit… underwhelming.
But beggars can’t be choosers amidst a global pandemic, so when I got sick of taking pictures within my own four walls, I decided to try and look at that local park in a new way, with a new perspective, and see what came of it in terms of some captured images.
And guess what I learned?
You can take great pictures anywhere!
Of course location does make a big difference in your pictures in terms of the overall look and feel, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid or put off heading out with your camera just because you don’t have access to any exciting locations. Our local park could hardly be described as a photographer’s paradise, and yet on a sunny afternoon bathed in golden light there’s an undeniable beauty to the place that I definitely missed in the past.
These are unusual times, and that deserves to be documented. In years to come I might not remember all the beautiful locations that we travelled to and all the ‘happy travel snaps’ that we took, but I think I will remember these slow afternoons spent at our local park, just the three of us and nobody else around, playing soccer and enjoying the sunshine while the world spun on around us.
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