Folks,
In hard rock country like Utah there is always something unique to see and a unique way to see it - take an arch formation for example. You can appreciate it's lines artistically/aesthetically - how they change as sun hits it at different angles during the day, it's curve and form, it's sturdiness or delicateness, it's size and mass; you can appreciate it scientifically/geologically - the process of it's formation, the physical make-up of the rock itself, why it is the colour it is, it's height and weight, what used to be there but now isn't such that what was left was the arch.
As a photographer, one who aspires to be better, you have to be of two minds - one technical to make the camera do what you want it to do - the other artistic - to capture an image not only of the subject but to be able to make the subject say something to a viewer and say that something no matter the nationality of the viewer looking at the photo.
For some this process comes more naturally than others. I think if you are artistically inclined you already have an advantage with a camera in your hand. You are used to pre-visualization and you are used to taking 'reality' and reducing to it's barest essentials, focusing in in on what your artistic mind wants the viewer to see.
Another aspect of picture taking is colour vs. black and white. Sometimes a very bland photo in colour takes on a whole new aspect and meaning when rendered in black and white. Gone is the colour information which can take a way from the subject detail and what is left is a stark presentation of a subject that before may have been lost to viewer's senses.
I think some of the most memorable photos are black and white - yet the most memorable paintings are indeed very colourful - can you even think of a famous monotone painting?
I think the reason for this is that the painter has already stripped reality bare through the process of painting itself, i.e., a lot of colour information has already been removed from the scene. The painter is using a palette of ten to twenty tones, where a 'real' scene has something in the order of hundreds of thousands. If the painter were render the scene as charcoal or shades of brown/black the painting would lose emotional impact and be reduced to simply an image. That said, there is talent to communicating sparsely - read any Cormac McCarthy novel.
So a photographer/ painter has several choices to make in rendering a scene - 'real or imaginary and those choices will affect the emotional response (or lack thereof) of the viewer.
So you simply don't take a picture and print - you learn to work the scene over a day, return to the scene again and again and work it some more, process the shot in different ways, maybe crop in, maybe burn in, dodge, maybe filter, maybe sharpen, maybe reduce clarity, maybe print using a different type of paper, use a creative border, add grain, sepia tone, etc.
There are many creative choices to make in capture, processing and printing and and none of these can be 'cookbooked' - it isn't the same process every time - it is what the image requires and even demands that true photographer must heed. It must be similar to the song writing muse and that for writers, etc. Something grabs your creative side and won't let it go until you have eked out what the muse wants.
I am not even hearing the muses yet, let alone understanding what they are saying - but nothing beats time behind the camera and you just operate knowing that, if there is enough time, and if you work at it consistently, the muse will start to notice you and somehow, engage with you.
Let's see what today brings for a 'musement'.
To quote from verse 91 of the Krome Koan, 'I work for myself and my boss is STILL an asshole.'
Phil
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