Tuesday, August 02, 2016

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Walker


We are getting close to the start of the Olympic Games and with that normal outburst of Olympian enthusiasm I will find myself sitting up in the middle of the night on the edge of my seat drawn by the drama of some first elimination heat in some obscure sport I would never normally consider watching in a thousand metres. Take, for example, walking: now there's a silly sport if ever there was one. If you want to go fast, why not run? It is an event for purposely limited potential - which, in a strange way, is my kind of event.

I am a photographer not an artist. My potential is limited by the camera lens and the digital editing software. If I had ambitions to go fast - in an artistic sense - I would paint or sculpt and let my imagination fly free, just like my brother. But as a photographer I am bound by self-imposed rules : one sense has to be on the ground at all times. Occasionally I will think about breaking into a trot - like when I started to colour this old 1901 glass plate negative of Norrkoping in Sweden. And then I remember I am a walker and not a runner. It is the lot of a photographer.

5 comments:

  1. I like the colors you added and your idea of how photography differs from art. I did not know walking is an Olympic sport!

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  2. I think the mill is fascinating. Is that a swing bridge? Wooden, no less.

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  3. An interesting perspective on life. If you really do watch the walking event keep a watch out for an Aussie who was recently awarded the gold medal for the last Olympic games when it was taken from the Russian who was found to be using drugs. It took them four years to do the tests.

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  4. Did you know that the speed at which we process information is 3.5 mph, Alan? That's average walking speed, and it'll do for me.

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  5. Did you know the sport of Walking used to be called Pedestrianism?
    I saw a British Walker on TV the other day. He walked faster than the interviewer (a very fit guy) could run.

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