We took three of our grandchildren to the movies today. I didn’t especially want to see the movie (Pete’s Dragon) so I went off to Barnes and Noble to wait until they’d finished. While there I started reading “Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision” by David Duchemin. I’m a fan of Mr. Duchemin’s and I have a few of his books. I like the way he focuses on vision rather than on technique. However, in reading his introduction I came across this paragraph:
This is a book about the passionate photography of people, places, and cultures. It’s a book about chasing your vision and telling your stories as clearly and passionately as possible with compelling photography. It’s a book for everyone who’s wanted to shoot images of the places and people they love, whether or not they ever go around the world to do it.
Mr.Duchemin lives in Victoria, British Columbia and he does include a few (very few) pictures from there (particularly Vancouver) but most of them are from further afield: India; Kenya; Italy; Nepal; Ethiopia; Tunisia; Vietnam; Cuba; Thailand; Egypt; Ecuador. Apparently Mr. Duchemin likes to shoot: “places and people” he loves in exotic locales. Pity. Most people to not get travel to the extent that he does and it would have been nice to see a fe pictures of places that that did not require going “AROUND THE WORLD TO DO IT”. I would have enjoyed seeing some pictures along the lines of: “I took this one walking back from the pub”. Or “I was sitting in my backyard when…”. Possibly such mundane locales do not appeal to Mr. Duchemin.
As usual though I did enjoy the remainder of the book – or at least those portions I had time to read.