Light Musings

Experience, Create, Share, Re-Experience

As I mature, both chronologically and psychologically, I find myself becoming more contemplative. In my early days of photography, if it moved, I’d shoot it. In fact, if it didn’t move I’d also shoot it. My goal was to create great looking images. These days I’ve become much more selective. I want my images to be meaningful. I find myself not taking a shot as often as I take one. My choice of subjects has become much more selective. Simply creating a good-looking image is no longer sufficient. To achieve this goal I have boiled my photography down to the following four steps: Experience, Create, Share and Re-Experience.

As photographers we are continually advised to get to know and understand our subjects. Excellent advice, to be sure. Understanding the habits of wildlife or the prevailing lighting conditions of a location will undoubtedly lead to better photographic possibilities. It is essential that you take time to experience the environment and your subject before shooting it. This will result in both better images as well as an experience to add to your lifetime of experiences. For myself, photography has ceased to be about creating images and is more about capturing experiences, hence the first Experience in my process. Two years ago Cathy and I toured Iceland. Iceland is an amazingly beautiful country, and we certainly came home with many beautiful images. However, it is the memory and experience that we had while touring the country that I wanted to capture. The book that we wrote when we returned, is titled “Iceland – A Personal Journey” to reflect that this was a book of our experiences.

The second step in my process is to Create. Joe McNalley wrote a wonderful book titled “The Moment it Clicks” about “the sheer joy of clicking the shutter”. This moment of creation is essential and includes all the things that we have been taught as photographers; composition, exposure, lighting, anticipation of action, etc. The moment you click the shutter you have created an image, frozen one instant in time. However, the process of creation is far from over. Ansel Adams is famously quoted as saying: “A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.” This takes you back to what you experienced as you took the photo. The totality of what you observed and felt should be expressed in the final image. The idea that a camera’s CMOS sensor is the equivalent of the combination of the human eye and brain is ludicrous. How the image is processed will reflect the artist as much as reality. Will the image be printed on gloss or matte paper? As a color or B&W print? Should you darken the sky or burn in some of the highlights? Add a vignette? These are just a subset of the many decisions to be made in the final stage of creating an image. The final image should represent the photographer’s experience of the event as well as their vision.

One thing that almost all artists enjoy is Sharing their work. What is the point in creating a work of art if not to share it. As a matter of fact, sharing of photographs is what is driving the current explosive growth in digital photography. Most of us remember when sharing images meant carrying around a paper envelope of 3 ½ x5 inch prints and showing them to friends and family. You could always tell the serious photographers, they carried around their latest 8x10 B&W prints. Times have changed radically. Online sharing is now the norm. Today a person is more likely to pull out their smart phone to show you photos from their last vacation or of their new baby. In fact, it is highly likely that they took the photos with their smart phone. You can have your own internet gallery on pbase, photo.net, photosig or Flickr. And of course there is the omni-present Facebook. There is no question that technology has tremendously enhanced our ability to share our images, and experiences, with others. But what does this mean for the serious photographer?

The beauty of the digital revolution is that it has opened up so many new ways for photographers to share their images and to express themselves. It is very easy today to create an attractive website to display your portfolio. Some of the savviest photographers today are making great use of Flickr. If you are serious about selling your work or services is it assumed that you will have a Facebook page and a blog to promote yourself.

Another form of sharing that has become extremely easy is publishing your photos in book form. Pick up any photography magazine and you will find dozens of companies that make it simple for you to create coffee table style books of your works. I find the creation of books to be one of the most satisfying methods for sharing my work. I can include not only my images but factual details and my thoughts of the event. I have also begun to create ebooks that can be downloaded and shared over the web. The options for sharing continue to expand.

Understanding how you will Share your work is essential to the Experience and Creation steps. Cathy and I were recently touring Death Valley. I had never been there before and became fascinated by the geology and history. I thought it would be fun to create a book that would include our fine art photographs as well as describe the history and evolution of the valley. Instead of focusing my efforts exclusively on fine art photography I began to think journalistically, and began to document old mill ruins etc. Thus the manner in which I intended to share my work was driving my experiences and creative process.

The final step in my process is to Re-Experience your work. I know that most photographers enjoy going back to old images and looking at them. They bring back fond memories of past experiences. And, after all, isn’t that what we want? As we age it is extremely pleasurable to be able to look back on a lifetime of work and re-experience it. I can think of nothing more satisfying!

(If you would like to see examples of our ebooks of other works please check out our website at: http://mcfineartphoto.com.)