Where’s The Duck?

One of the fastest ways to get better as a photographer is, as I’ve said, join a local club and get involved with all of their activities.

Last night the Oakville Camera Club hosted a webinar featuring renown master Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson.

A member of the Order of Canada a read of his achievements and recognitions on Wikipedia is humbling and awe inspiring. Freeman is the real deal and last night he talked for welll over an hour about photography not from the ever-popular question of what camera do you use but from where does creativity come from?

Much of Freeman’s work, available in many of his books for sale online, feature his abstract work much of which features artistic movement of the camera itself. There is a life-time of learning art in every photo.

But what I found interesting was the story Freeman told about another club workshop where after showing one of his abstract images of reeds bent in a waterway a woman commented she’d like to have seen a duck.

“A duck?” said Freeman. “I didn’t want a duck!”

And this proves my point about people, especially on social media and now at club meetings, who think it is perfectly alright to comment on how they would have preferred to shoot an image shot by another photographer without a thought of what the original piece of artwork was meant to convey.

So don’t be that person and don’t ask “where’s the duck?”