Waiting:
Seems like the old saying "no matter where you go, there you are" is especially useful when we find ourselves having to wait. It can be a stressful time or a time of complete relaxation since much of the time we spend waiting, there really isn't another choice. So we make the best use of our time that we can. Friends to chat with, books to read, smart phones and pads to surf the web and check our email and FB status, catch a little shut eye or just stop the presses and do a little day-dreaming.
I want to build this project album of photos of people in everyday life, doing what most of us have to do at some point or another and Wait. I'm looking forward to watching how this grows which of course means I will likely have to do a little waiting myself.
I'll post the beginning of this project here and link it to my website here
http://www.tomcollinsphotography.com/Projects/Waiting/28580397_TWgfvk
where the album of photos can be viewed as it's being built.
It's funny coming up with projects like this or any other kind for that matter because once you get the idea for a direction and you spend some time thinking about it, the idea itself begins to make itself present in your daily life. As long as you are one of those devotees who carry a camera, of any kind, with you everywhere you go, you will be ready to start to capture your project in photos. If you're very thoughtful you'll even be able to "make" your photos rather than just "taking" your photos by being prepared and being in places where the theme for you project is most likely to be present. And, with that thought in mind, anywhere you go, there you are.
I hadn't realized that this idea of making photos of people 'waiting' was something that I've actually been up to for some time. The idea to do this I thought just came to me the other day while I was waiting in the hospital for my wife to have a day surgery.
I was sitting and waiting for hours and as usual had a camera with me and as I looked around the waiting room I saw my idea come together. Seeing the other folks sitting, sleeping, reading, surfing the web on tablets and smart phones, chatting with friends and all waiting. All doing the exact same thing in different ways.
That's when it occurred to me that this could be a fun photo project. After all most of the time, most of us are waiting for something. In line at a check out, for a movie, for a light to change, in a traffic jam and on and on. We spend lots of time waiting and what we do with that time is interesting to see also. So, with this in mind I began to look around the waiting room I was in and look for ways to make the pictures I wanted to tell my story of waiting through photographs.
When I returned home and had a little extra time to play with my pictures, I started to look back in my archives and realized that this theme is something I've been shooting for some time but never really thought of as a 'project' or theme. I've been taking photos of people sitting and waiting for years.
But I like to be current and I like to be out making photos at every opportunity I have so I've decided to not add many of my old photos to this collection and instead try to build it with new ones particularly because now I'm aware of the project and I believe I'll make my shots differently.
The photo on the right of pedestrians waiting for a light to change while standing in front of the Today Show building at 30 Rockefeller Center was made in December 2011.
The photo on the left was made in March of 2011 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Thanks for looking. To see the entire collection as it's being built, check out the gallery at:
http://www.tomcollinsphotography.com/Projects/Waiting/28580397_TWgfvk
All photographs in this post were made with either an Olympus OMD E-M5 or an Olympus E-P3. Lenses included the Olympus 12mm/f20; Olympus 17mm/f1.8; Olympus 45mm/f1.8 or the Panasonic/Leica DG Summilux 25mm/f1.4.
