i've been thinking a lot.

thinking about my thesis project...
thinking about post-graduation matters...
thinking about my clothing line...
thinking about buying an imac...
thinking about what to eat before i go to bed...

but the thoughts i'm about to discuss correlate to my last post, the train photo series. i took these photo while headed to new york one day on the illustrious nj transit. i was standing in that awkward in-between-car-space because the train was pretty full. i had my camera so i snapped some shots out the window. i do not think they are the best shots ever [and they are lightly edited to remove the haze from the funky nj transit windows] however i think there decent being that i was moving at 80+ miles per hour. they abide by some of the technical "rules" of photography [the last two photos were taken on a different day so they do not apply to these thoughts].

after really looking at these photos and selecting the ones i liked, i thought to myself, "can i really take credit for these shots?" yea, of course i pushed the button to fire the shutter and the photos are on my camera, but i was moving so fast that i couldn't really make decision about what was in the frame and what wasn't. i didn't pick a certain subject to focus on. i guess you could say i got "lucky" with the outcome. i understand that there are plenty of things that we can't control in art, but is this true for photography? especially digital photography? [as far as i'm concerned, developing is practically its own art] i feel like digital is so technical and all decisions must be justified. if that's the case, i can't really justify the decision to fire the shutter at any points i did, based on what was in the frame. if i thought something interesting was approaching while looking out the window, i would snap the shot but i made no decisions about the positioning/angle of objects. at this point i feel like i'm rambling so i'll stop here...but i felt the thoughts that occurred in my head were interesting and worth sharing.