I dunno where this idea came from, it hit me a few days ago when I was mentally lamenting the lack of imagination that has been rife in my PAD of late. I was thinking of those ‘Robinsons Barley Water’ ads that have the ‘feed their imagination’ theme because I know mine went missing some time ago and since my lovely series of chess shots and my terror bite, all of which came in a flurry some months back, there has been nothing mysterious or unusual in what I’ve done at all really.

You see, contrary to what some might think, I know when I’m in a lean period and I know I have been in one of late.

To be honest, I’ve also thought about giving up again but have decided for the second time this year, to continue because I know I’m no judge of my own work on any kind of level. The things that I do that I really like, don’t get lots of hits, then there are things that I do that I think are completely average and they get loads.

So, I give up trying to work out what makes people tick.

I’ve also been in a fertile period with regard to purchase requests, some of which I’ve been chuffed about and others have appalled me. Last week, I got one which I felt the only ‘morally right’ thing to do was to turn it down, money or no money. I’m not going to go into details but it involved religion and that’s always a bad thing in my book. Weirdly too, the pics that people want to buy are rarely what I think of as artistic or imaginative triumphs. Often I think of them as downright dull.

Anyway, I hit on the idea of catching flies when I was rooting around in the drawer for a plastic bag to put the result of some imagination in the kitchen (see I do still have some, even though it seems to be jumping out of me in other areas at present) into to freeze and I spotted the pack of flies that David was photographing for his brother-in-law’s website. The sticky fly strips that I use in the greenhouse as a non-chemical way to control insects popped into my mind and I got the idea. I must say, it’s not what you’d call a stylistically pleasing shot but it is nonetheless pleasing to me because it at least shows a bit of spirit and a bit of what I think of myself as being good at – photographing things that aren’t there! Strangely this fly was the one I shot last time around too.

Is this the start of a new, improved phase of my PAD? Who knows. I just know that I’ve been in a rut but that if I allow my sub to run out then I will lose my opportunity to sell from pbase, as well as the other advantages it brings to me so I’m not going to let that happen. I also know that I would soon lose the will to shoot at all if I didn’t push myself to do it as part of my daily routine. Perhaps therein lies the problem.


I'm not sure what to say about last year really - surely one of the most depressing episodes of my time here on pbase....