In the daily rush of life, it can be easy to start to push one’s art to the back of the que. Photography is everywhere and the smartphone makes it much easier to do, most people are now carrying a camera with them all the time. However, is recording everything constantly, worth doing, can it be called photography or art?

The watching of public events has started to make me think about this more. Whether a small local event or a national moment people often start by reaching for their phone. And now the moment is lived through the screen on the device and the images and video that is captured. This is particularly strange when considering national events because there is almost certainly high-quality professional footage and photographs of the entire proceedings readily available. Why don’t people just stop, concentrate on and enjoy the moment, their memories of the day would almost certainly be enriched if they did. As it is they run the risk of the main memory being that they could not get their device to focus at a critical moment, or that the flash did not fire, or … a similar problem. It is almost as if they always need their own version of the day recorded.

Of course, as a photographer, I do understand this desire – the challenge of the exceptional image that you created because you were there. I also though understand that creating a constant stream of images, can make for meaningless content, or at least the volume of the stream risks watering down any single image found within in it. You risk being overwhelmed by your own content: Unable to see the wood for the trees, unable to see the exceptional image because every image was good. Unable to process the volume of images required – and so the files become temporal and are at risk of being lost or accidently deleted.

Another risk is that you start to suffer from photographic apathy. I think that this is something that I have come close to in the past. It can take a couple of different forms: a). You start to take photographs for the sake of taking photographs, because other people are taking photographs, because you feel you must – or the like. That there is a lack of effort in the work and its execution is formulaic. b). You can’t be bothered to take a photograph: because it is too much effort, or someone else is already taking it (especially true is a crowd at a public event), or worse still you convince yourself that ‘they’ will be taking a better photograph.

Recently I found myself travelling home, sitting looking out of the car’s window, I watched the sun as it made its way towards the horizon. Suddenly, I sat-up for I realised that in the next 20 minutes we would be passing alongside Cors Caron. This is a raised bog and National Nature Reserve in Ceredigion in West Wales and an area of exceptional natural beauty. We looked set to reach the bog just as the sun will be going down and the light that day was already amazing. At that moment I had to make the decision to stop the journey, to rouse my already tired family, and to delay further our much-needed dinner. I would have very little time. I would also have to decide in advance what part of the bog to head to and consider which areas I could reach within the minutes available to me. In other words, I had to decide to be bothered, to care, to try – and take a photograph of a single moment (one of the things I like about the setting sun is that at least at this latitude it is momentary). In the past I have let such moments go but that day I decided to try.

Here is the photograph I took. It is not perfect, but then what does it mean for a photograph to be perfect? The greatest thing that can be said against it is that it is picturesque – a sin in many art circles. But for me this scene is a moment in time, a memory, a calm second after the rush out of the carpark and running down the track. A scramble through the vegetation at the edge of this small lake. Balancing by the water’s edge, one foot touching the water. And then a deep meditative breath as I calmed myself, steadying the camera to help the shutter speed, checking the composition and settings. The still glass like quality of the water, the dancing silhouettes of the foliage, the gentle dissolving of the salmon pinks into indigo hues as without a sound the sun disappears.