Waiting for Godot: Western Sydney Photography // Photography //

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I took the above photo in November. We were spending the afternoon at the in-laws, and the light was beautiful and everyone was having a lovely time exploring the backyard (all 5 acres of it). I took my new camera with me, because soon we won't be able to explore that backyard as my in-laws are selling and moving around the corner from us. So we've been trying to take the girls up earlier in the afternoon, before family dinner, so we can get as much enjoyment out of this beautiful property as we can. It's going to be sad to say goodbye.

Often when I take photos of an afternoon like this I'll have a quick look at them when I get home, see one or two that I like, maybe even clean some up and post them on Facebook. And then I'll forget about them for a while. I'll leave them to sit, let the memory in my mind percolate a little. Allow myself time to move away from the day and the vision I have of it in my head.

Then, like yesterday, a month or so later, I'll revisit the photos. Click through them slowly. Look at them with fresh eyes and without the vivid memory of the day sitting there fresh and clouding my vision. It's then that I'm able to pull out the shots that have real potential. I can look at them with a photographers eye, rather than a participant's eye.

And I'll crop, colour and experiment, until the photo that I first saw when looking at the scene and it's glorious light in the flesh, comes to life. This is what I love about photography. The chance to bring a small inkling of an image, that I have but a moment to capture on the day, to life in the way I first envisioned it, in the split seconds between seeing, focusing and capturing.

I think this photo above is my new favourite. It's Punky and her Pop. Punky loves her Pop. On this day she followed him around wherever he went, helping him garden and water the plants. They'd just finished touring one section of the yard and had sat down, having a quiet chat together. I don't know what they were talking about. I was about 50m away. Zee and Dave and my brother-in-laws are just to the left of this shot. In fact in the un-cropped version you can just see Zee toddling up towards them.

When I first looked over and saw them sitting there like that, this was the photo I had in my mind's eye in that split second before I released the shutter. It was a beautiful day, with lots of lovely golden light streaming through the trees. But in a fraction of a second I saw a small girl and her Pop, sitting on the rocks, waiting.

What are they waiting for? For Zee to reach them? For Dave and his brothers to stop mucking around? For a cool breeze to rustle through the leaves and cool the sweat on their brows after a backyard adventure? I don't know.

And that's what I love about this picture. They could be waiting for anything. They could be waiting for nothing. What are they seeing as they sit there? What is going through their minds?

For me, this picture makes me wonder what they are doing, what they have been doing. It makes me ask questions about the two people, one small, one big. It doesn't give any answers, but lets the viewer speculate about what has been, what could be. That is my ultimate goal in photography. To have the viewer asking questions, thinking, wondering.

Or maybe I'm just a photography wanker. Ha!

What do you see when you look at that image?

Linking up with the lovely Trish for Wordless Wednesday and failing miserably at the wordless part.
Again.

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