Old Photography

This post is somewhat inspired by this one on my friend Atila's blog. After all, why shouldn't I write a nostalgia post?

I've taken over two thousand photos with my phones since 2020 - all the earlier efforts have been lost to the shadows, due to not backing up or using the cloud. And this is my first one. Admittedly, I removed it from my phone and only have it because it was saved on Whatsapp, but here it is, nevertheless.

 

 

You can tell it was taken on a phone as it's horrifically vertical, and yes it's a very basic tomato sandwich. It dated back to the 19th February 2020, and there's no metadata aside from the fact it's a JPEG. It's only been included here because, technically, it's the oldest photo I still have. Like many first forms of art that are still around, it's a random concept. Still, one of the most famous artworks is of a signed urinal, so maybe it's not that bad.

There are probably other photos lying around somewhere on the internet or clogging up a server, but the earliest photo I've never since deleted that I still have is this one, a curious relic of the times.

It was taken at 12:52 on the 22nd March 2020 - one day before Boris Johnson announced a nationwide lockdown. Unexpectedly, I'd be spending far more time at home than usual, the regular diet of pre-GCSE schoolwork replaced by occasional worksheets and excess listening of LBC. Maybe I was too preoccupied with the news at the time. Anyways, back on track:

This is Beverley Brook in Richmond Park, not that I knew that at the time. I've always wanted to go back there and take another photo, not least as I now have a proper camera and my current phone does a decent job too. In the bottom right hand corner, you can see a dog which I only noticed a while ago - it blends in perfectly with all the shrubs. 

It was a very pleasant visit to Richmond Park, and though I don't remember much, I do have this photo of deer which I used on one of my first blogposts - Where is South London?

The photos aren't particularly high quality, not that I wanted them that way necessarily. I didn't have much of an interest in photography at the time, I was probably thinking "Oh my, look at the deer, they're real!"

I also took a photo of a small bird up in a tree, and I reckon I've improved at that too. Another thing I noticed was that I've also deleted some photos between these shots - the Brook was definitely first, it's photo 0100 - but the bird is merely 0104, and the third oldest on my phone.

I never really got round to taking more photos that year - indeed, I only have ten from that year, and four are from Richmond Park. Two of them are of flowers, and one was sent by my grandma so doesn't count, and the others include:

• A large victory in a game
• Freshly baked muffins, which I also didn't take
  
• A fly on my floor
• Some old phones

You can tell I wasn't one for eye-catching and interesting scenes. Since those ten, I've increased my photo-taking far more. I moved up to 44 in 2021, buoyed by a holiday to Poland, and slowly I got better, like in this one:

The only issue I have with this one is that there's a man sitting on the side, otherwise it would be a splendid, unobstructed view.

Perhaps my favourite photo from that holiday, though, is this one from Gdańsk, which came about from me playing about with the noir filter. I'd like to imagine that with regular colours, it would look extremely dull and forgettable; with the monochrome, however, it stands out amongst all my earliest photos because of this, and maybe that's exactly why I like it so much. I'd also like to say I've got better since.

 

I reached over 300 photos in 2022, as I started visiting places more regularly, such as Battersea and the National Gallery, and also had a great holiday in Scotland (as can be seen in these two blogposts). I also took many photos of my local bus stop to track how dark it got at certain times. Yet again proof I'm a bit oddballish, especially as I never finished that experiment.

The biggest jump so far has been for 2023, when I got up to 930 photos. Uncoincidentally, I started blogging that year, so obviously I took more photos so I could write about them. And that takes us to 2024, where thanks to my challenge of taking one photo every day, I'm up to 1,300 already. Many of them will be deleted, though, as storage is important and they're just not that interesting. There are only so many blurry wavefronts you can capture.