Your World Through a Window, New Lockdown Theme

 Life Through a Window

 Here's the new video introducing our new lockdown photo theme to explore. As always we'd love you to follow and share your responses in the Walking Photography Facebook Group.

Some Window Inspired Examples...

Lockdown Through a Window Video Transcript :

Lockdown Through a Window Video Transcript :

I wonder if I said to you picture uh a photograph of a green field and a blue sky i wonder if you would be close to imagining the picture that i have in my mind?

And the picture I have in my mind is a really specific image actually it's an image that was used by microsoft XP's default wallpaper in the early naughties around it might have even actually been 2000 i think. Windows XP brought out  their software and the default wallpaper for that was this photograph of a green field and a blue sky it's a photograph called 'Bliss' by an ex-national geographic  photographer called charles o'rear and he took that photograph whilst on his way to visit his girlfriend's house now that photograph  according to wikipedia at least uh says that it's probably the most viewed photograph in history and not only that at the time the rights for that photograph were bought by microsoft it was the second highest amount ever paid for the rights uh to use a photograph so it's definitely commercially successful photographer it's certainly a photograph that's iconic and i think a photograph that's important, it plays an important part of photographic history as well and there's a few things that are really interesting about that as well for such a big image i think it's really interesting that even though it's this was a national geographic photographer, it was a spontaneous personal moment that he took that photograph i think that's a really interesting point and secondly i think the photograph itself if you can imagine it, it's great it's clearly iconic because i'm someone who's used mac all my life yet i can still really remember and envisage that photograph really clearly even though i've never owned a microsoft computer or laptop so it clearly is quite a powerful image and so the second thing about it is it's conventionally you know that conventional approach to landscape photography it kind of moves away from that really it's not there's no real feature in there to draw the eye there's no real um leading lines or anything like that it's not even taken in the golden hour you know when we when most landscape photographers go out and and photograph and capture landscapes it's before that because you've still got that strong blue sky and and those strong uh green grass colours so it you know it's a very interesting image for such a powerful and successful image you know it's a it's a good thing to think about and look at and and challenge ourselves i'm always worried when photographers only go out in certain conditions and and certain situations and and that is a classic example of why you shouldn't just restrict yourself to certain moments and certain times because you know that trip to his girlfriend was probably the most profitable journey he's he's ever made. Anyway it's an interesting thing to think about and uh sort of on topic of what i want to do so for our new uh walking photography theme... 

I want us to look at windows and that's going to be our theme moving forward to look at windows and now it could be any kind of window it's just like all my themes you can interpret it exactly how you want i am a lifelong member of the gazing through windows club uh i probably would have done a lot better at school had i not uh gazed through so many windows i'd certainly get a lot more work done uh here and get a lot more videos out and a lot more photos out if i didn't gaze through windows i cannot help but gaze through windows i'm gazing through uh these studio windows uh while i was filming this i've already seen jackdaw black headed goal gold finches and some starlings on the chimneys as well out there and i just can't help but uh but be drawn in to what's happening through a window i love the way that they frame things and and and you can remove your position into adjust the frame in it and then you can just sit and gaze with a cup of tea or whatever and watch time pass by it's brilliant and it's a great topic for lockdown as well because we're spending more time around the home and and most houses will have several different types of windows different sizes different dimensions and shapes and stuff you might have even have a basement window and some of you might even be lucky enough to have stained glass window i love stained glass windows not just looking through them but seeing the light come through them and and land on things around the house uh i don't have a stained glass window but i would if i could afford one um there's all sorts of other things you don't have to just look out of the window you can look in through the window um if it's not your house it's probably a good idea to make sure that people know that you're you're looking through that window don't stand outside someone's house with a camera looking through their window that's wrong and a bit weird but um the other thing you could do is um use windows to light things in the house so it could be a portrait or a pet you know a person and a range that i love that kind of soft directional light that you get that comes through a window and arranging someone so you get that kind of um what you might call rembrandt lighting used to light people that soft directional shape and light can be great it doesn't have to be people or pets you could make an arrangement of flowers something like that you know do whatever whatever you want just uh it just helps to have that focus of a of a window as a theme to sort of channel your your creativity towards so have a think about that and please interpret that in its broadest sense uh the stuff that you did for the outside in topic was brilliant i loved seeing all the different arrangements you made and not just the arrangements but also the things that you guys were collecting and bringing indoors it was fascinating and i know there's people from all over the country so uh and in different sort of environments as well so it's really interesting seeing all those different things that people collected and seeing all the colors because you know this is the time of year you don't necessarily associate with color but there were loads of different colors coming in which was a real joy and uh really inspiring to look at and uh really so thanks for sharing those and i'm really excited about seeing what you come up with on the topic of windows as well so thanks again for watching and uh yeah so post them on the walk-in photography facebook group which i'll put a link on in the description and and i'll see you soon.