In a Photogragh

 

What do you See?

 

Just an old tree trunk?  Is that what you see when you look at this image?  Are you wondering why I shot it?  Why I would even bother crouching down on one knee in the cold, and  frig with my settings on my camera while my fingers froze to get this shot?  Why I would bother taking it to Light Room to "spruce it up"  (that's a pun lol...in case you missed it)?

Being Called

When I walked by this tree trunk a few weeks ago...it seemed to call out to me as many of the things I shoot do.  No...not telepathically lol...I just intuitively turned to it.  My eyes were drawn to it.  I felt it's strength and its essence.  In one split second...without being consciously aware of it at the time...I  saw the contrast  between outside and inside, old and new, broken and strong and life and death..  I thought it was absolutely beautiful in its apparent brokenness. I had to shoot it. 

Later, I was compelled to create an image that tricked the viewer into thinking they could reach out and touch the crevices in the bark like I had done, that they could feel the moss beneath their fingertips and the sticky sap long after they walked away.  I wanted them to feel the tree.



Create Feeling and Connection

 



I guess that is what I want to do with my images...create feeling...recreate the feeling I experienced when I look upon the things I shoot. They do not have to be great Ansel Adams shots but the incentive is the same.

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
Ansel Adams