Living Photographs
From the stone age humans have had the urge to make pictures, to realise the miracle of making marks on a two dimensional surface which communicates to the viewer how we see the three dimensional world. Through the development of basic drawing and painting skills, and eventually through the use of a mechanical tool called a camera, man has followed his inner urge to recreate the real world on a sheet of paper, to simply record the truth of reality.
A good photograph is one which LIVES. In other words it springs out at you, stirs your emotions and engages your imagination. It may be a technically imperfect snapshot or an amazingly composed and sophisticated piece of art – in fact this is a personal judgement because a photograph may be alive for some and dead for others - so all you can do as a photographer is to make images that live for you, and let that be enough. Even when you have become an accomplished photographer you will still produce fifty dead photos for every live one. But eventually you WILL produce an image which has a life of its own.
Something marvellous happens when eye, brain and camera (seasoned with a large dose of luck) fuse together to create a live photograph. Never ever throw your live photos away, regardless as to whether they are technically perfect or not. Your photo has stirred emotion, it has spoken to you and to your viewer, so it has earned the right to survive because it now has a life of its own.
There is only one route to becoming a good photographer: practice. All of us vary in our ability to co-ordinate brain, eye and camera and most of us struggle to learn composition and form. It doesn’t come naturally – photography requires many years of constant dedication and daily effort in order to perfect the craft. No-one can call himself a photographer unless he practises regularly.
Whether it be capturing the perfection of a beautiful woman, or recording something as mundane as an insect feeding on honey-water, I defy you to look around and find something which is not worth photographing. And as you continue to practice, your photographs will reflect both your developing skill and growing passion, so that before long your images will begin to achieve that special quality that marks the trained photographer: they will speak to the viewer. And very occasionally, for one perfect moment in time, you will create a photograph that will truly be alive in every way that matters.
Honey B
A good photograph is one which LIVES. In other words it springs out at you, stirs your emotions and engages your imagination. It may be a technically imperfect snapshot or an amazingly composed and sophisticated piece of art – in fact this is a personal judgement because a photograph may be alive for some and dead for others - so all you can do as a photographer is to make images that live for you, and let that be enough. Even when you have become an accomplished photographer you will still produce fifty dead photos for every live one. But eventually you WILL produce an image which has a life of its own.
Something marvellous happens when eye, brain and camera (seasoned with a large dose of luck) fuse together to create a live photograph. Never ever throw your live photos away, regardless as to whether they are technically perfect or not. Your photo has stirred emotion, it has spoken to you and to your viewer, so it has earned the right to survive because it now has a life of its own.
There is only one route to becoming a good photographer: practice. All of us vary in our ability to co-ordinate brain, eye and camera and most of us struggle to learn composition and form. It doesn’t come naturally – photography requires many years of constant dedication and daily effort in order to perfect the craft. No-one can call himself a photographer unless he practises regularly.
Whether it be capturing the perfection of a beautiful woman, or recording something as mundane as an insect feeding on honey-water, I defy you to look around and find something which is not worth photographing. And as you continue to practice, your photographs will reflect both your developing skill and growing passion, so that before long your images will begin to achieve that special quality that marks the trained photographer: they will speak to the viewer. And very occasionally, for one perfect moment in time, you will create a photograph that will truly be alive in every way that matters.
The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.
Brooks Atkinson
Brooks Atkinson
Honey B
Labels: HoneyB, Philosophy
posted by Lin at 3:39 PM
4 Comments:
I love your butterfly, I think it's cool and I can "see" the colours.
What you say could be said, with a word changed here or there, about dancing, acting, painting, and writing. This is about the creative act, and I would add to your discussion the concept of Inspiration. For me, that one aspect separates the Meaningful from the Mundane.
My kind of post. Thanks. Keep writing.
That photo is awesome. I was about to say that I wish I could take photos like that, but actually I would prefer to be able to get models like that and learn how to take photos that are of that sort of quality. That would be better.
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