I ran away this past weekend.

 

Just to neighboring Colorado, and just for four days. Just my self, my cameras, and my art journal. Just for fun..

 

Whenever I leave home, I am on a quest for visual adventure, and I am not a typical tourist. In fact, the first thing I do is gather up all the tourist literature to see which photos I will not be taking. I am looking more for the undiscovered attractions, and the sights not usually seen.

Have you ever brought home a set of vacation photos and been disappointed that they didn’t really capture the “essence” of your trip? That they didn’t have the “feeling” or the power to “take you back” there, wherever “there” was? Did they just feel like the pictures on someone else’s postcard?

 

I have had that experience too many times. And I take pretty good photos after 20+ years of practice. Some of my best photos actually do look just like postcards, in fact. But that doesn’t mean that I find them an exciting way to remember my adventures, or fodder for great journal pages.

 

 

Why “Guerrilla” Photography?

Although the word “guerrilla” has a military history referring to unusual ways of fighting, it has come, in a broader sense, to mean “irregular” - doing a thing outside the normal ways of doing it.

 

As many of you know, I am a devotee of fine art photography and adhere strictly to the rules in my workshops on the subject. I’m a purist on focus, exposure and composition. That is one thing.

 

But, where there is one thing, there can be another thing that is not the same thing. (Say that three times quickly and see if your eyes cross!)

 

There is a world of imagery that you just can’t capture in a fine photograph - with a fine camera. The light won’t be right, the camera will refuse to focus, you won’t have the right lens, or you will be locked-up because people can tell you are taking photos in a restroom - which is where I found the Flamingo in Flip-Flops, by the way.

 

I don’t allow “PhotoShopping” in my Art of Digital Photography Workshop, but PhotoShop or Elements play a large and essential role in guerrilla photography - to help turn junk photos into “art”. Simple digital cameras, cell phone cameras and the like, take photos that may be off color, grainy with digital noise, or lit in some unearthly way. But all of this can be corrected or enhanced in PhotoShop (depending on your taste), and you never know what art you can create from that crummy image.

This knob, found on an antique cupboard looks a bit like a face to me - one with a large nose. But it also has much more of a story when we really stop to look at it. Those screws have been tightened more than a few times, and someone wasn’t careful to protect it from the last coat of paint.

 

The original photo (right) was taken in a Ladies Room also. Someone was pounding on the door while I took it. Little did they know they were waiting for a photograph - lol.

A Word About Restroom Art . . .

One of the things that has amused me most about my pursuit of guerrilla photography, is how much great imagery I have found in Ladies Restrooms (haven’t tried the Men’s and don’t plan to). While I don’t recommend those at gas stations or rest areas, the restrooms at cafés and restaurants can be wonderful. They sometimes seem like a secret little “gallery” space where the proprietress has expressed her idea of what bathroom decor should be. Eclectic doesn’t begin to describe it. My friends and I always visit the “Ladies” these days, whether necessary or not.

The Secret Is Seeing . . .

We are forced to look at so much stuff in our modern lives, that we don’t actually *see* much of anything. “How To See” is a big part of what I teach my students in both photography and drawing workshops. And many of them write to tell me that lesson has changed the way they go about their daily lives. There is so much to appreciate if we take the time to see it.

 

See the critter at the right? He was hiding at the bottom of a pole. Can you spot him in the original photo below?

 

Would you have thought to look down at the bottom of this pole? Probably not. It’s not a thing that draws attention.

 

And our little friend looks either sad (or mad) that he has been trapped there and gone so completely unnoticed.

 

He (she?) looks like a keyboard key to me and I think I will illustrate him in my journal. Who knows - Dear Me! might like to meet him.

 

And people ask where I get my ideas! If they only knew!

Things Are Looking Up. . .

See this lovely flower?

It was drawn by a fourth grader for a street banner.

 

Her whole picture is great. I love the sun especially.

 

And I would have missed it if I had not been looking up.

The Tip of the Iceberg . . .

As you can probably tell, I have developed a grand passion for image capture via guerrilla photography. It has made a fun adventure out of everything I do and everywhere I go. It has taken the boredom out of the most mundane situations, because there is visual treasure hiding everywhere, just waiting to be discovered.

 

 

I am going to establish a Flickr site (or something similar) for the sharing of Guerrilla Photographs, and you will be hearing about that. Meanwhile, if you come with some great guerrilla images to share on your blog or Flickr site, give us a link in Comments.

 

To wrap up this post - here is Ms. Flamingo in all her glory. She is all decked out, but to me, the footwear put her over the top, so I chose to focus on that for my final guerrilla image.

One the the secrets of “seeing” is looking in every direction: up, down, and a full 360º. Do this while standing still, of course, to avoid collisions, falling off curbs, and other disasters.