Notes on my derive experiment

Photos here

Being inspired by reading on the concept of derive this week (wk2 of PHO710), I decided to pick up my old habit of going on a photowalk, but to set some conditions. Whereas the original idea of the derive is more or less to follow your gut and walk where inspiration takes you, a number of practicioners have expanded this idea by adding some constraints, e.g. Mark Power’s 26 different endings, taking pictures at the edge of the London A-Z map.

I decided to add some constraints to my walk, by using an app to choose my route for me, helping me to go off the route of my usualy walks around town somewhat.

In the Wikipedia article on derive I’d come across some apps which were supposed to help randomise a route you might take and / or give you some prompts for each stop along the way you chose to make.

This is what I came up with as a brief for this walk:

• Use the Randomnautica app to choose an initial location within 1km of my home
• Use the Derive app to generate prompts for an “algorithymic derive” – which basically gives you direction prompts rather than mapping out a full route. Follow this route as long as I want (there’s no way to give instructions on how many points to follow or the max distance from where you start, and I didn’t want to be left stranded in the middle of nowhere – I had to keep an eye on how I was going to get home)
• Since the Derive app gives some directions as the number of “quartals” and I couldn’t figure out what they meant by that, I decided that for my purposes a quartal meant a block. Austria isn’t really builty on a grid system, so what I mean by block is a stretch of street between two street junctions – it doesn’t have to be a crossroads
• Some directions were blank, so take those to mean you can do whatever you want, but make that decision (e.g. walk one block along this street) before doing it
• Take screenshots of the app’s directions, and take photos at each of the stops (while walking I decided it was OK to take photos between stops too)
• Track the route of my walk using the Walkmeter app
• Take photos in landscape orientation (I kept forgetting and took quite a few in portrait orientation)
• Use the Fuji X100V which is an APS-C format digital camera with a fixed focal length 23mm lens
• No constraints on shooting mode
• Photos can be edited in post-production with no particular constraints, though they should stay true to the spirit of documentation (don’t remove any lampposts or litter)

You can see the direction screenshots and photos I took during the walk here.

I set out after in bright sunshine after checking the weather forecast which showed a 17% chance of rain. I was more worried about being able to see well in bright light – I need my darkest dark glasses to be able to see well ahead of me and navigate, but they make using the camera a little awkward, and juggling two or three pairs of glasses and a camera is a bit of a pain, but I decided to run with it. Soon the clouds rolled in and made seeing easier, but also as you can see in the photographs, the rain rolled in and at the next blank direction I started to head for home. Just in time, I reached the shelter of our local supermarket before the heavens truly opened.