Algorithms for the Masses by Julian M Bucknall

The Daily Shoot for Wednesday, March 17 (#ds122) was either wacky or genius, I’m still not sure. “Grab your camera and walk 2 minutes in any direction. Stop. Find a photo worth making from where you stopped and post it.”

A two-minute walk is roughly 200 yards, maybe 250. I work at home and that would basically put me somewhere within our neighborhood. No chance of getting outside it at all. So, at lunchtime, I diligently set the timer on my iPhone to two minutes, stepped outside the front door and pressed Start. At the end of the driveway, which way? I decided to go up the hill since we always drive home from the bottom. At the top, a junction. Which way? Let’s go left, I thought. A neighbor just there was having some flooring put in, bang, bang. Felt somewhat self conscious lugging around this camera plus zoom lens in the brilliant midday sun. It’s a short little street-let and another junction. I decided to go left again. A couple of steps and the Marimba sound played on the iPhone. So, here, then.

What’s here? Houses, gardens, a couple of cars further down. Felt self-conscious just standing there, looking around, casing the joint. Hmm. On the other side of the street was one of the postboxes that serve mail for a dozen houses. It’s different than the one in between our house and my neighbor’s, newer. It had a bright red sign on the grey background. Let’s go for that.

I also took another photo, this one of the box for large parcels, as I wasn’t quite sure how the first would look.

Both were cropped a little from the originals, but I didn’t futz around with any other settings.

I felt bloody daft taking photos of mailboxes in the dazzle of the midday sun, so it was with some relief than I walked down the street to complete the full circle to get back home.

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• Retro camera: Fujica ST605N

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