On Photography

print making day!

Somebody recently asked me what kind of photography I do.  I had a hard time answering that question.  What kind of photography do I do?

In the beginning I was primarily inspired by Ansel Adams, Sonya Noskowiak, Edward Weston,  Imogen Cunningham.   All members of the f.64 group. The f.64 group of photography born in San Francisco as a reaction to the Pictorialism that preceded it.  Pictorialism used a lot of soft focus, specialty lenses and props, and was a romantic view of the subject. The tenets of the f.64 movement, also known as Straight or Pure Photography, were defined as being the elimination of any "qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form." In practice f.64 photographs are characterized by lack of image manipulation, careful rendering of delicate tonalities and image details, extreme depth of field, and the refusal to use softening filters or lenses.  They also shot full-frame, no cropping, and so the eye had to get it right, compositionally, from the beginning.

When I first took photography classes I shot in black and white only.  My eye developed this way, and I saw the world in terms of a black and white translation.  When, after many years, I moved into color photography, I had to learn to see all over again.  The intimidation of learning to develop and print color kept me in black and white a long time.  Finally, a college course requirement moved me into color work.  Now, that's mostly what I do.

My shooting style is essentially spontaneous.  I know a lot of photographers who do beautiful landscape photography, plan their locations and shots meticulously and are brilliant technically, both with the camera and with editing/printing.  I am not any of those kinds of photographer.  For me,

- camera is used handheld
- photography is spontaneous
- I move around  and work the subject from multiple angles
- I pay close attention to details when composing in the viewfinder because my goal is to create images which will be printed full frame, without any cropping
- my goal is to capture the "decisive instant", the moment when disparate human and non-human elements in the scene suddenly come together to form a coherent whole

- I frequently take my camera with me during walks or when running errands, in case I see something that visually grabs my attention

- I don't (currently) have very many human subjects in my images

The question posed to me really opened up a long-dormant thought process about my photography.  It was a great question, and has got me thinking and looking at my work.  I've been pulling out images from the 1980s and seeing how different my subjects and style were back then.

I feel energized and inspired.  There is a lot to say and write about, not to mention photograph.  But I'll leave you with these quotes for now:

People don't watch enough. They think. It's not the same thing.
Henri Cartier-Bresson

Every man's work is always a portrait of himself.
Ansel Adams

To be able to really see, one must open not only one's eyes. One must above all, open one's heart.

Gaston Rébuffat, French Alpinist