What was that anything you ask? Well, I'll tell you, but not because you asked - I was going to tell you anyway. I gave myself an assignment to take pictures with my new phone. I decided to use my phone because it is new, and it would take up a lot more time and space for me to adequately describe each picture with words - figure roughly a million words for each picture, at least that's what I've been told.
I decided to take pictures of people on bikes, bike messengers specifically. As I found out with the first few of my shots, the shutter lag on the camera is a little extreme, making some of these guys hard to capture on film.
As the day wore on, I became more accustomed to the limitations of my camera. I also realized that I didn't necessarily have to capture movement. I realized that in order to capture these messengers in this urban environment, I would have to think of them as something other than blurs on the streets.
Sure, many people only think about these guys weaving in and out of traffic, but to catch them when they aren't moving is to see them in their element. After all, their jobs, their lives, consist of more than just riding their bikes.
Taking the time out today to go do something that I wanted to do, I realized something. No matter what is happening in my little world, everything else keeps moving on with or without me. I can choose to stay indoors and simply watch the world pass by or I can be out in it experiencing the sites, the sounds, the smells, the good, the bad - all of it.
Life is too short to be taken on while standing still. These guys seem to understand that pretty well.
-bike messenger jonathon
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