"When I was starting out -- the first, oh, twenty-five years -- I would have a preconceived idea of what I wanted to photograph. I would get in the car and start looking for it, and never find it. Now I just go out, and let things happen. Because... preconceiving, you miss a lot." -- Clyde Butcher
... As interviewed on the Luminous Landscape DVD Journal.
(You must see this man's enlarger. It is the size of a car and more expensive.)
(And he prints inkjet too. He has a 44-inch (112cm) Epson printer.)
When I was most active in a photo club almost thirty years ago, one of the members (whose pictures I can't really recall now) chided me a little for taking pictures of "accidental" things that just happened where I was. Apparently it was not serious art. Well, photography is a unique sort of art, in that it is a collaboration with the Universe. You go out there and you Dance with the world. If you wish to impose your will totally on it, I think painting or writing is more for you.
2 comments:
It is a very good point you make here. I tend to go looking for specific things, and never find anything that I like, yet the other day one of my sons bought a digital camera, and "ran out" of things to photograph. I took his camera and did ten shots in the kitchen in about five minutes, then we had a look together. He was inspired, and I was surprised! There was so much right there around me that looked so good when it was framed. It showed me how much I take my own environment for granted! You have put that in to words.
From day one, I never made it a point to look for a particular subject when I went out into the field to do fine art nature photography. The subjects always announced themselves. On one day, I might find virtually nothing, save one gem of a photo; on another day, captivating subjects were everywhere, thrusting themselves at me faster than I could trip the shutter on my camera. Interestingly, the subject would typically only allow one ideal angle of view. If I could just find that one angle, I would be happy with the result ...
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