Random Photo Notes, Vol. 9
These are just some notes I have written about a few of my favorite photos. They range from social media posts to descriptions on my homepage, sometimes handwritten notes made in the field. They are not in chronological order.
I’ve always found it helpful to put words to my images, whether in the form of scribbling exposure settings in a notebook or writing about composition.
If photography can be partly considered the organization of the visible chaos that surrounds us, then I believe writing can be somewhat to do with taming the invisible and internal.
Looking back on my notes has always helped me to reflect on my technical and creative progress, as well as on my journey through life.
Tilt and Swirl, 7/9/23
[2/20/24 Edit: I came back to this photo recently and decided to flip it back right-side-up in my Abstracts & Details gallery. The upside-down orientation has been bugging me for some reason but now I enjoy it a lot more. At the time of editing I think I just got a little overzealous in the pursuit of making this image “more” than it really needed to be. Something like that. Corrected image below.]
Water continues to inspire and motivate me to get out with the camera this Summer, and my latest trip out saw lots of creative “luck” as I wandered a nearby creek
This particular image is flipped upside-down to disorient the viewer, by making context a little harder to grasp (it is literally viewing down a waterfall), but also to provide framing and a centrifugal design.
In post processing I accentuated some of the colors, such as the blues in the water, to give more weight and emphasis to certain areas of the photograph.
I went with a whimsical title because that was how I was feeling - light on my feet and happy to be living in the moment surrounded by a verdant river gorge. No deep thoughts here, just simple joy.
Grace, 6/27/23
The concept of Grace appears in many places in our culture but is seldomly mentioned in the context of creativity or photography (or maybe I’m looking in the wrong places). Guy Tal wrote an article in On Landscape about it a few years ago, and as usual his words resonated with me.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in life’s petty goings on, depressing social and environmental news, and so on, that it becomes easy to forget our innate ability to set aside the ugly for brief moments. Without these moments of grace, I’m not sure life would be worth living.
It’s a “chicken or the egg” puzzle as I wonder which sparks the emotion first, so that it can be conjured in the future: is it the physical natural world around us or the vastly more complex emotional landscapes within? Tal suggests finding moments of grace is actually something that can be practiced, and I find that idea encouraging.
False Summit [from Entropics Series], 5/28/23
Lately, the light has been very bright and harsh any time I’ve gone out for a hike. The inspiration and motivation has often been high, but composing images has been challenging thanks to the extreme contrast between shadows and highlights. I gravitate toward more low contrast, atmospheric scenes (both while viewing photos and in the process of making them), because I enjoy the peaceful subtle colors, shadow detail and other soothing qualities typical to scenes illuminated by more subtle, soft light.
Regardless, I was happy with the direction I took my photography the other day when I began a new series I am calling “Entropics”. Entropy is a powerful, fascinating quality of the natural world. As often as we lament, even reject, the dying and decay of biological beings, we tend to overlook the physical beauty of the breaking-down of the material components of life.
I took a few photos in this vein the other day, all in black in white, that bring to mind the textures of petrified trees or animal bones. Some of the images make me think of mummified flesh. It’s all a little macabre, I admit, but I’ve long lost interest in photographing only the “pretty” things. Scenes like these appeal to me in a visceral way because they help to deepen my appreciation for the natural processes to which we are all subjected and indebted.
