In the world of digital imaging, it's often easy to get overwhelmed by the number of images we create. I personally have hundreds of thousands of pictures, and managing them can be a real chore. It’s also very easy to import a set of images, go through them once or twice, maybe share a few and then never look at them again. I know I’m guilty of this, but It’s important to occasionally revisit your older photos. 

I’m starting a new series here on the blog, where I discuss my sources of inspiration. These are the things, and people that have inspired me over the years, both photographically and otherwise. Today I want to discuss the work of the great Japanese master Katsushika Hokusai. 

I was recently back in one of my regular overseas haunts, the beautiful German town of Heppenheim. I’ve been there several times before now, and you can find some of those previous visits documented on my blog. The sleepy little German town is partly modern, but also partly medieval, and that is its real charm. In this post you can see some of the photos that I took while there.

This may seem like something of an obtuse question at first, but bear with me and let me explain what I mean. When you take a photograph of something, what is the most important thing to you about that photograph? Is it the subject of the photo - the person, place or object that you captured? Our is it the photograph itself - the art of the image, the style of the photo, or the creative way that you captured it?

Without a doubt, my all-time favourite TV show is Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing. Every time I re-watch the show, it reaffirms my belief, that for me, it is one of the best TV shows ever made. Aside from the story, the performance of the cast, and its optimistic viewpoint, what I most remember about my first time watching the series when it originally aired, was that it got me interested in cinematography for the first time. 

There is a pretty amazing exhibit on in Dublin Zoo at the moment. The “Wild Lights” experience, is an art show of sorts, featuring animal shaped lanterns which are all around the zoo, mimicking a real zoo experience, only in lights. The artwork was created by a group of china artists, and is really something to behold. My wife and I recently paid a visit to see the exhibit and it was amazing.

The other day I was sitting in the window at one of my regular Starbucks pit-stops, and I was trying to write some content for my blog, but I was struck by a bad case of writers block. I was sitting there staring out the window hoping for creativity, and then I began playing with my camera while I sipped my coffee.

I was a big fan of Mythbusters when it was on, and I'm a big fan of Adam Savage. I regularly watch/listen to his podcast on Tested.com: “Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project. I love Adam's insight into the creative process and as someone who has worked in the creative arts for many years, I know where he's coming from a lot of the time. He often puts words on experiences or feelings that I've had working as a creative in ways that I could not. One of the things that he's talked about several times on the podcast is something that I've experienced many times throughout my professional life, and he calls it "Imposter Syndrome"

One of the interesting things that I've noticed after years of Photography, is that certain types of light act as a sense memory to me. In much the same way that a smell can trigger a memory for many people, I find that seeing a certain quality of light often triggers memories and feelings of nostalgia. 

A lot of the time when I'm out photographing, I take pictures that, while not exactly the most fascinating subjects, I still like to take. Sometimes, there's something about an otherwise bland scene that I really like, and it's usually to do with the way the light is falling in the scene. Sometimes people don't get what I see in a scene, and that's ok. Not every photo has to be a masterpiece, and not every photo has to be art gallery worthy.  Photography is, of course, all about light, and sometimes I love an image because of the way the light interacts with whatever is in the scene.