September 4, 2020

Photography is having the courage to look your subject in the eye, sincerely, honestly knowing your own insecurities and yet communicating your determination by expressing your connection with the subject that eases confrontation and opens up the potential for an image creation that expresses not only your subject’s beauty but your own inner style.

Photography is having passion for creating something that stimulates your inner realizations. It is evolving into your own visual awareness of what you want to externalize.

Your empathy and honesty links oneself with your subject and in those moments of truth, in that slippery time, just for a split second, you are immersed in the infinite universe and you see an expression revealed in beautiful light and you press down on the shutter to create your image.

What is your game plan when you come upon a unique scene are you calm or are you so overwhelmed by mother nature that you end up taking pics of everything and anything without studying the landscape in front of you and familiarizing yourself with your inner vision?

What stands out in the scene that begins to draw you towards it? What is the subject telling you about itself and what details begin to register with you as a natural flowing composition presents itself?

Deep breaths release the tension mounting as you want to start right away snapping photos because you have a lot of other icons you want to take pics of today. First slow down, if you don’t take the time to relate to the subject then your images will be dull, uncomposed, touristy snap shots.

We all have the ability to create works of art. What determines your abilities to create your vision is your unique perspective?

Determination, your steady forward progress, learning the intricacies of exposure, lenses and composition.

Your subject is patiently waiting as you begin to immerse yourself in the scene waiting for the light and shadows to deepen, taking your time to explore and discover a perspective that is original.

What elements in the present scene do you relate to? You are not their to manipulate the scene but express through your skills the beauty that surrounds this present moment.

Nothing remains the same and as a photographer you must be aware of the changes happening right in front of you as you assemble your composition, your camera angle, allowing the light to emphasize your inner resolution, your choice where to make the image from.

By ignoring time and focusing on the scene in front of you, you are connecting with external forces and your inner intuitive vision to will the image into being.

Compositional purpose is your instinctive originality, your unique personality, your novel perspective.

In the past you have tried a lot of technical stuff as if this will automatically create a beautiful image. You must ignore the intellect trying to disperse your energy with ideas that are beginning to jumble your focus and concentration. Take a chance try a different avenue of expression by opening your mind to a natural flow of seeing through your own unique imagination and no one else’s.

Enjoy the beauty before you which is trying to connect with you on a deeper level giving you an awareness you never had before, a true means of making an original photograph through your burgeoning ability to see beyond the standard path of redundant snap shots.

A great image like a great line in poetry takes focused intent and a means to arrange the details of the scene being created with your truth and a strong sense of wonder at the descriptive details of nature that make up the ingredients that make a so, so scene into a great image for you and your viewer.

Photography is seeing the dignity in a moment forever past yet renewed in an ever changing light and experience through the image creation.

Life is continuous motion, a never ending illusion of external time in space.
But when we make an image time freezes and we can view our past moments through photography, for isn’t that the addiction of cameras to stop time and our aging process and make us immortal. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder but the creator of the image viewed.