GOYA

Over at Flickr, there’s a guy (his work is also here) who set up a small group called GOYA. It means “get off your ass,” although, for the purposes of alienating the smallest number of people, the group says “arse.” It’s a group that’s dedicated not only to photography, but to making photographers think out of their usual boxes.

In the words of the group’s creator:

GOYA is a challenge. A challenge to get out there and make new work that is a departure from something you normally shoot. Normally, I’m shooting portraits of musicians and entertainers. So GOYA for me is to go out and shoot portraits of strangers, street people, or to get out of the portrait realm and shoot still life, nature, etc. Subjects I don’t shoot for pay.

It was with this idea in mind that I took a few hours out of my weekend to shoot some black and white film. It’d been a long time since I’d done anything of note on purpose, so I packed up the camera and drove around to a few places I pass regularly and went back to them to make photographs. I’m not sure anything of import will come of them, but it was fun to go out and “push the button” for awhile.

I sometimes forget how much fun it is looking through the square viewfinder of the old camera rather than the much smaller digital 35mm. The world is more luminous. It’s more interesting. Something about the optics of the Hasselblad makes everything look dreamier than it is in real life.

I may process the film (and actually, the roll of film I shot while we were in England a few weeks back). It may be a few days before I can scan them, but in any case, I’ll post to crow (or rant, more likely) about my results.

Oh, and I may have an entertaining announcement within the week. Gimme some time…

(And for what it’s worth, Chase Jarvis posted a bit on his blog that talks about photographers finding inspiration here. He’s turned it into something of series. After you’re done, get off your own arse.)