Life, Death and Dinosaur Food

How photography can make a bad day better

We might think of life as a road but in fact, it’s a see-saw, nestled atop a roller-coaster suspended by elastic bands. Throughout our lives we try to maintain a steady ascent but the higher you crank up that hill the sooner that corkscrew will come and scatter those plans like an unsettled stomach. One second you're holding your hands to the sky, screaming to go faster, the next you’re holding on for dear life.

You can change the carriage of course, pick a few passengers, even purchase a smooth bit of track but ultimately the destination is always the same. Sooner or later we all end up like that cow in Jurassic Park, hovering above an ominous sounding enclosure wondering why everyone around us looks concerned.

So what can we do in the face of this futility? Use to it our advantage of course!

Let’s be clear, when the fateful roller-coaster of life decides it’s your turn to sit behind Weak Belly Brian who won’t stop complaining about his shellfish supper, you may have to hunker down for a face full; As analogies go that’s a hard one to spin. There is however a way to lessen the discomfort, perhaps dodge it completely. It’s a handy little thing called perspective and photographers have tons of it.

For a photographer, perspective helps us squash the 3D world to a 2D space while at the same time hunting for perfect marriages between light and space. If something looks bad, a photographer knows they can always approach it from a different angle, tweak the settings, or change a lens for a different view. Sound familiar?

We know it might not make the worst moment great, but it will certainly make a bad one better. So rather than wait around for that inevitable shit-meets-fan scenario, get prepared. Get yourself into perspective bootcamp and find yourself a camera.

With a camera in hand the brain immediately becomes wired to look for the perfect shot. Each object, scene, moment can be translated in innumerable ways and it’s up to the brain to sort through all the rubbish to find the best one. Every angle from floor to sky, macro to milky way is another avenue to explore with each one forging a new creative pathway along the way. The more you shoot, the more you see and the more you see the better outcomes find yourself with. Locating the best shot or the best outcome is all the same mechanics, it just requires a little tweak of the settings which to a photographer is second nature.

So when you make that final descent into that place and you lock eyes with the velociraptor for the first time, remember this: You might be scared, there may be no way out, but at least you’ll be thinking

“This would make a cracking photo!”