These are my personal thoughts on things that affect our world and our art. Take them or leave them, no intent to pass judgement is meant. Life is about decisions and they have consequences. We don’t have to stop living and growing!
Choices
Choices! My feeling is life, art, photography everything I can think of it is about choices. It doesn't end, try not choosing and you've made a choice. I believe you and your art are a sum of your choices. Truly, completely choosing is for me the end game. You’ve planted a flag, I saw this and this is how I choose to express it to you! Some photographers see value in collections, more than one image with similar theme or subject or idea, and honestly nothing wrong with that. It's a choice and it's valid and is a nice tool to show you where you are at and what your style is. For me I like to pick one, this is the one that I think tells the story best that was in my mind. The other thing I see is photographers doing is hedging their choice, they have scene they like and make multiple versions, we all do that, but then they will show everyone all the versions, you choose! IMO, your photography is about your expressing what you see, and not just .throwing leaves into the wind. It's about expressing what you see and feel about the world and while you may not have a great chance of making others exactly the same. But you can make them stop for a moment, feel something/anything and that's an accomplishment. These five images from 2024, are for me where I was at my best expressing what I was experiencing. The plan is to keep working on that in 2025.
Travel, photography and the planet
Likely not a subject we want to think about, though it sure needs to be. Air travel like we experience it today just isn't sustainable. The carbon footprint is horrendous. Yet there's nothing quite like traveling to a far flung exotic location to rev up our creative instincts. To make it worse there are photographers whose business plan is to take 6-10 maybe more people along with them. With friends this subject quickly gets rerouted or I hear something lame about the plane is going anyway! My idea is just a little less travel, maybe a trip a year for start. In the meantime work on your seeing and your awareness! Where you live is exotic for someone! What are your creative photographers credentials if you can't find ways to express close to home? Give it a try! To add fuel to the fire, lots of photographers seem to want to get to Antarctica. Talk about a carbon footprint for your travel. Here's an Atlantic magazine article from last year where the continent is referred to as the place no-one should go! Jeff T
PS, The image below is leaning out on my fire escape!
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/antarctica-tourism-overcrowding-environmental-threat/674600/
Aspect Ratios
A very obvious, but too often overlooked tool to make better images!
Photography seems pretty simple, point your camera at something that is interesting to you and press the shutter. What could be easier? Now, put some thought into it and try to make it a more interesting. What else is around here and you can move those 4 corners around. I don't really need that rock in the photo or do I? That edge of building adds to my shot or does it? You'll quickly discover that making a compelling image is about not only what you put in your viewfinder but what you leave out! One valuable tool is aspect ratios, and it's way too often ignored. It's almost laughable how many "good" photographers simple leave their camera and their editing software in the default 2 by 3 ratio. What a boring waste. Often the best images are the simplest ones and how simple is it to just let a square a 1x1 aspect ration tell the story. Simple, balanced, no emphasis on height over width. Why not start there and expand if you need to. Frankly I find the default 2 x 3 boring and downright awkward especially in a vertical view. I tend to stick with traditional ratios, 1 x 1, or 4 x 5 in both horizontal and vertical views and the classic XPAN panoramic ratio of 24 x 65. But experiment and learn to use the aspect ratio that best tells the story you want. If your camera allows you to compose in different ratios so much the better! Some like Fuji’s have a wide variety and it’s not only fun but it can help you produce more interesting images. Keep it simple was some of the best photography advice I ever got! The image below could have lots of treatments, It would have worked as a square but might not have gotten the feel of the wings, I could have shown all the wings but I think this middle ground, tells the story. Venice during Carnival if you are wondering.
Creativity and the Obvious
In art, the obvious is a sin.
Edward Dmytryk
Is the obvious creative? I believe it depends. I had a discussion with a teacher friend after I posted an image of a sunset over the prairie and remarked that it was obvious, so not that creative, but I liked it. He thought just making the effort and snapping the shutter was creative. Maybe, sort of, but for me not so much. We ended up agreeing that there could be a scale, less creative and more creative. Who determines? Everyone or no one. Personally I think standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, night or day and the scene before you is obvious, it's on the less creative end. When I witness what some photographers do to this images tells me that they had to get pretty silly to make it theirs and more "creative". But you isolate the smaller parts of that scene, the light on the rocks or the trees or the juxtaposition of those rocks and the shadows, I believe this is more creative. Don't get me wrong, if I'm standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon and it's an amazing sunrise, I still snap the shutter. It's beautiful and I'm a photographer! But it's not the sort of thing I hang my hat on and tend to share. It's a nice memory. I understand these epic images are popular and likely sell, though I'm not always sure why. Is it a wish they were there or it stirs a memory? It's all very cool but probably answers the question of why I don't sell images. I enjoy trying to find the moments and compositions that many people might not notice. Photography is an amazing undertaking, the possible is limitless and that's just outside my window. We all do what we enjoy, that might be taking the 10 millionth image of Mesa Arch or finding the depth of contrast and tones inside of a lily. As long as you like what you come up with, have at it. I'm just saying maybe at your next sunrise or sunset, turn around and see what that light is doing behind you.
Harmonious
All that is not useful in a picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements.
I thought Harmonious was pretty silly photography advice! But that's what I got on my first International workshop, Scotland in 2018. I won't mention the fellows name, he knows who he is. I think we were on the coast. I was looking to make an image of some rocks in the surf, and was having trouble composing anything. Yet I'd seen images he's made of just this sort of scene and they were wonderful. What I got out of him was make it harmonious. Well that didn't help a bit and was just frustrating. But, I still go back to that day and that advice. As time went on I realized that he was telling me to try and feel or sense when my composition was right, or balanced or felt good or made as simple as I could make it. It's a feel, a sense of rightness or quality that not everyone gets right off. For some it might never click, but if you learn how to ease up, take a breath, see without thinking, you'll definitely know it when things are harmonious! You can practice this, pick up a book by your favorite photographer, look at the images, find some you really like and then ask, why? Why do I like this, why does this just work and feel right. Balance is another word that gets you there. Balance is when the composition doesn’t send you out of the frame, balance is where the components seem to fall into their proper place, There isn’t a struggle. Granted, sometimes a struggle might be what you want, but that’s for another day.
