The Things I See in a Photograph | Documentary Photography | Cambridgeshire Photographer

I wanted to start a monthly blog series — ‘The Things I See in a Photograph’ — sharing a single photo that I took and looking a little deeper into what I love about the photo. 

As a documentary photographer, I try to tell stories in my photographs capturing emotions and connections that are not contrived or fabricated. Being strict in my approach means that I have to be quick to observe and interpret things that naturally unfold in front of me or in what I seek out.   

In a way, it is about noticing the things that can seem normal, ordinary or part of the everyday. Places, people, objects and emotions. They are the things I love to photograph, to try to notice, think about and understand. This series is my attempt to share some of the thought processes that I take to making a photograph.

I realise, in doing so, I should say that photography is a subjective art. How one sees and the feelings evoked from a photograph varies from person to person. Your thoughts may be different from mine, but that is what makes photographs more interesting. I welcome the opinions and love to hear them. I find it fascinating how certain photos connect with certain people.   

Each month, I will share a photograph that could be from my personal archives (street, creative projects, social documentary, travel, etc) or a particular image from a client session.

So, let’s soak up the goodness for a moment and hope that you will feel the same in the photo too.

The first entry is below.

Merry-go-round

This photograph was taken back in November during a week of dense fog. Around the part of the country where I live in Cambridgeshire, the land is mostly low and flat, and fog dissipates very quickly in the early hours of the morning. But that week the fog sat unusually heavy for several hours in the day giving me a chance to go out and photograph in it.

Wandering around in the fog, I tend to notice how quiet everywhere seems outside. It feels so peaceful. Like a light blanket covering over everything so not only is it hard to see, but also muffling out distant noises too. 

I did not see many people during my walk around the neighbourhood. Maybe it was the time of day or if there were people, then they were hard to make out in the distance in the fog. Like the shadow of the lone figure framed between the trees on the horizon in the photo. The empty playground added to the mood in the atmosphere. A sense of desertion.

What struck me when I was stood inside the playground though was seeing the soft light highlighting the bold colours, lines, and shapes of the equipment. Instead of scenes and the noise of children playing on the equipment, they cut a presence in themselves, the quiet characters in their own story in the photo. 

A story that had seen some happy and better times through its history, which as the warmer weather will come again, evokes a feeling of warm nostalgia than the empty image first seemed.