Can you tell that I am reading an article on ICM,
Intentional Camera Movement? If not; I am. The article is one of Craft and Vision's eBook publications, Slow, the Magic of Long-Exposure Photography by Andrew Gibson.
But what I would like to quote from that article has nothing to do with ICM. I often tell people that they will never see a straight out of camera shot on my blog; you wont. The author of one of the included articles, Joel Tjintjelaar, includes a quote from himself with which I am very much in agreement.
But what I would like to quote from that article has nothing to do with ICM. I often tell people that they will never see a straight out of camera shot on my blog; you wont. The author of one of the included articles, Joel Tjintjelaar, includes a quote from himself with which I am very much in agreement.
“I don’t believe in straight out of the camera shots. I
believe in the artistic result and in the visualization of the artist of how
he/she sees the world. A camera is just a piece of hardware with no mind, no soul,
no artistry, just an object that records a situation, unbiased and emotionless.
I’m not interested in the vision of a piece of hardware, I’m only interested in
the vision of the artist with a mind and soul, who will alter the image to his
reality. It’s the difference between photography and art.”
Equally as shortsighted is post processing your images to meet some 'conventional impediment.' Yesterday I was reading an article on using Lightroom 5. In the article I found something that I thought was refreshing because it made post processing recommendations based on the photographers emotional reactions to the scene rather on the arbitrary conventional impediments we are so familiar with. It stepped down through 1. correcting the images obvious shortcomings, 2. enhancing the photographers sense or feeling at the scene, 3.an evaluation of the elements within the image. Each of the above categories was then broken down into finer divisions and then the author made post processing suggestions for each of those divisions with suggested specific LR5 tools to use. The first two columns could easily be applied to the thinking in any imaging software and in my opinion was valuable information on how to approach post processing. Unfortunately right now I cannot find the article but when I am able to locate it I will post a link.
I really wish that I was smart enough to know how to get other photographers to intuitively see photographs rather than the subject matter of photographs. If you can only see these images as photographs of a napkin, cream containers, paper coffee cup, part of a book, the top of a table then you have greatly missed seeing the photograph. There is no coffee cup, no book or any of the other objects in these images, only lines, shapes, forms, color, tone or as Minor White called it 'smudges.' What is important is what the lines, shapes, forms, color and tone convey emotionally or intellectually and the relationships created within the frame created by inclusion or exclusion. There is so much more to a photograph than the subject matter. Minor has a quote that I use frequently but I will share it again. "The documentary photographer says to the viewer, if you had stood where I stood you would have seen what is in this photograph. The poetic photographer says, If you had stood where I stood neither of us would have seen what is in this photograph."
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