I’m lucky, I can walk to work. Sometimes I take a lift but mostly I walk.
The distance from home to office is a little more than 5km and that allows me to start my day with 50 minutes of very pleasant physical activity.
The route I take is not what would be traditionally considered beautiful or stunning, but if you’re willing to look you’ll often notice something worthwhile.
Just a few days ago I came across the ADAY.ORG project which asked participants to take photographs on May 15 so that…
On this one single day we ask you to pick up your camera and help us photograph daily life. What is close to you? What matters to you? We will connect your images to images from all around the world, creating a unique online experience where photographs will be shared, compared and explored. Your view on life will be preserved to inspire generations to come.
So on Tuesday 15 May I brought my Canon IXUS 970 IS (small, compact, light, ideal) with me and I looked for images represented my walking commute on that particular day.
These are the result.
I was lucky that it was a dry sunny morning in Dubln which allowed for good colour contrasts between subjects and the clear blue sky.
Initially I thought there was no theme other than what I thought was interesting but later I realised that I’d taken quite a few images that give a sense of time and place.
I showed the results to a work colleague and he rightly pointed out that if I tried the exercise again that evening (walking the opposite way I guess) or the next morning (different light and sky) I’d probably take completely different photographs.
I think he was spot on.
I’m not sure if I have a favourite. Certainly I’m drawn to the last photo of the art-hoarding work by Anna Nielsen that makes a pleasant change to normal construction site fencing. I was also delighted the project inspired me to take a closer look at the Grange Abbey chapel ruin. The torn advertisement for new houses and the posters encouraging a vote for the Fiscal Stability Treaty on 31 May are signs of the times these days.
I submitted them and added comments which you can read here.
Sometimes when I walk to work I’m grappling with a problem of some sort. Perhaps something that has to be taken care of at home or more likely something that awaits me in the office and cannot (and shouldn’t) be avoided.
It was nice to have a different sort of project last Tuesday that allowed me to focus (ouch!) on other things.
