Book of untaken photos

It’s perhaps once a day I take a great photo in my head. My daughter has a way of capturing memories in her mind like a photo but this is more literal. I see things that I know would make smashing photos. And even though I have a phone camera and can and do sometimes actually take photos, they’re never ever anything like what I imagine in my head. I sometimes blame the camera, naturally, but more often it’s because I’m not a great photographer (well, only occasionally). I’d like to take more photos of people, but don’t have the guts. What I need, ideally, is a professional photographer to shadow me all day, every day, and for me to tell him (or her) the photo I have in mind, and for them to take the photo. And it will be a great, award-winning photo (on a daily basis). (In movies, it would be the equivalent of me being the director and telling the Director of Photography exactly what I want. Then them having to catch it instantly.)

Alternatively, I was thinking of publishing a photo book of photos I’ve not taken. So there would be descriptions of the photos but no actual photographs.

Such as:

Great photo of sunset here, Kuta, Bali, 23/6/2011, 7:45pm.

Or, slightly more poetic:

Jagged mountains stab the low clouds, a lone blue house nestled at the base of a mountain punctuates the harsh but beautiful landscape...

Actually, landscape photography is the most difficult to get right, especially with cheap cameras having infinity focussing, the result is usually flat and dull. Anyway, that’s the concept of the book: a book of photo descriptions but no photos. A type of travel book.

Here’s a recent one:

We were driving along a coastal road in Cork, Ireland. Ahead was a warning sign of a deer, black on yellow; the road signs in Ireland are quite elegant and charming. The sign was on the side of the road, behind it was dense green foliage, including explosions of purple rhododendrons. There was something about the lighting, the colours, the bend in the road that would have made it a great photo. But there was no way of taking it, then it was gone.

Previously on Barnflakes
A Brief History of Photography