little world

I managed to get a space to review a selection of the images I've taken - the ones that seemed the most relevant at first glance so brutally narrowed down to about 150. Essentially together they are an experiential catalogue, but I think they're more than that. Having had the chance to see them I've noticed patterns that, probably, reflect my thinking at the time. For example, particularly near the beginning of my time here there are a lot of straight lines and geometric shapes and compositions (perhaps trying to make logical sense of things, making the unfamiliar somehow familiar.) The more used to things I get, the more confident, so later there are more obvious photos of people, as opposed to ones taken from far away, or a roof or something. I've also noticed a lot of pairs of photos, ones near the beginning connecting with ones closer to now (although that may just be a coincidence.) And there are circles everywhere, which I can't decide whether to ignore and put down to culture, or revel in a little. There are also ones which highlight my perception of the juxtapositions going on here, although I'm not quite happy with them yet, I think they need a little more of something.
There are definitely threads through them all that tell my story here so far (whether metaphorically, or literally) but there's still so much left to tell.
Now that I've had a chance to look at them all, I'm starting to get an idea of where to go next. I need to be less literal, more confident, and more aware of composition, but at the same time, not tied down by them. I'm becoming increasingly interested on the effects of shadows on composition too, especially since they only exist here with any significance for short periods of time. Is it true what the photographer Josef Sudek said “all mystery lies in the shadow areas... expose for the shadows, the rest will come by itself.” I've been pondering over this fascinating notion for the past six weeks, and have come to the conclusion that if this is true, there is something I have been missing out on. The idea of exploring shadows with a digital camera seems somehow disrespectful, but since I wont see my film experiments with this for a while, I might just have to risk it.