It’s like scheduling was put on hold for a few days. Finally get to sit still to write a post, but my mind is a little unsettled with all the activities and work going on of late. Nothing much coherent will come out in the next few paragraphs. Heh.

It’s been a hectic number of days since the beginning of the World Cup. The only match I’ve caught so far in its entirety was Australia vs Japan. Heh, it wasn’t one of the most beautiful matches, with both sides making mistakes all the way. The result was a 3-1 win for Australia, after going a goal down and coming back in the last 10 minutes. It’s amazing how Guus Hiddink manages to make substitutions that become more of an attacking threat.

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Soccer aside, been spending a lot of time reading about camera equipment and technique. It’s been a few days since I’ve taken my camera with me, as my bag had been occupied by a laptop instead, to get some work done. There are many times I’ve read in forums about people and their equipment reviews, and you have a 50/50 view on a lens. Some say it’s sharp, some say it’s crap. Heh, the Internet has made a wealth of information accessible to people, but sometimes there’s so much of it a part of it becomes noise.

I do believe in spending more time taking pictures than just criticising certain certain lenses for lacking sharpness, contrast yadda yadda. Then you will also note the photo galleries online that show astounding pictures of what people have taken around the world. Sometimes it’s just a point and shoot camera, but the results are still stellar. It’s better to be there with a so called crappy camera, than not be there at all with the best equipment.

Photos I feel can be technically impressive, and I’ve improved my shooting skills in that sense. In terms of getting my pictures to tell a tale, I still fall flat on that. I’ve been focusing a lot on taking pictures that just look nice, but you don’t really get any kick out of it. Heh, I recall the times when I went travelling while younger. All the photographs involved people standing in front of a place and the shutter goes click. It’s more an exercise to prove that you visited the Great Wall of China than it is to capture the scenery untainted by a human figure covering most of the frame. Most people think that pictures should have people you know in them to have any value (and some would argue that instrumental music is boring because there are no vocals, which is a story for another day). Heh, ironically, many pictures that have won awards are pictures of people. They usually come with a caption, describing where the picture was taken and what the context is about. You see just a face, but that face tells you many things you would not be able to discover in a narrative passage.

Heh, I like reading about lenses, and I have a number of lenses that ideally, I would like to add to my collection. You know that these lenses will perform up to the task you set them on. Then again, I keep reminding myself about the crappy camera but being there to take the shot issue. My lenses may not be the best, but they can still do the job, so if you can’t change that variable, you have to up your own creativity and passion to get that perfect shot.

Just going back to the title of the post, I previously had the whole story mapped out in my mind but my fingers typed something else out. Plateau in this sense conveys the idea that I have somehow reached the pinnacle of what I can achieve with photography (or with any other hobby I’ve done so far). I may be good, but not excellent, and you feel a certain emptiness there. There seems to be a lack of conviction to take yourself one step higher. Then you feel more frustrated as everytime you try, you seem to hit a brick wall. I have learnt the basics for a lot of things I’ve done, but advancing myself into new techniques seem elusive. The problem is you sometimes feel comfortable with the set of tools you already have (in terms of ideas and practices) and you just use whatever you know to make the picture. Step outside the box I keep telling myself. I grow little by little eveyrtime I do that, but only if I’ve been focusing on the topic continuously.

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Heh, rant out. Will stop envying people who make great pictures, and go take some great photos myself. Just need the discipline to go explore a bit more.