Delicate Arch, Sunrise
The famous Utah landmark continues to offer unique visual opportunities when nature and light cooperate
Delicate Arch, Sunrise
The famous Utah landmark continues to offer unique visual opportunities when nature and light cooperate
Breaking the Rules and Following Your Passion
IN THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY I DEFINE GOOD COMPOSITION as the artist’s way of forcing the viewer’s eyes to work their way through an image in a planned, non-random manner. I cite several examples of this, including Ansel Adams’s famous Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, in which the viewer’s eyes are immediately drawn to the moon (because it is bright and surrounded by black sky, making it the highest contrast node of the photograph), then downward to the lenticular clouds over the mountains, then to the mountains themselves, and then to the church and cemetery toward the bottom of the image, with each successive level progressively lower in contrast.
When looking at Adams’s image, your eyes are effectively directed through the photograph in a very prescribed path. This says nothing about your response to the image (i.e., whether or not you like it); it just determines the order in which you view the various elements of it. Your eyes traverse that visual path quickly, so quickly that you’re not aware of the visual journey you’ve just taken. Some people are highly moved by the church and the gleaming headstones in the the lower portion of the image, and say that they focused on that area first. They didn’t. Scores of visual tests about how the human eye responds to visual stimuli have shown what the human eye is attracted to first, and none of them have resulted in information that would lead us to believe the church and crosses in Adams’s image could possibly be the initial attractant. In fact, it’s the moon, because the eye is first attracted to high contrast in any scene. That’s what everyone sees first, and then their eyes move to other portions of the image. All of this occurs very quickly, and it has proven true for everyone.
When I walk the reader through my definition of “good composition” and the elements of composition in The Art of Photography, I do not discuss any rules for good composition. I avoid them because there are none. Every composition is unique, and following some concocted formula will not guarantee a good photograph. There are no formulas; there are no rules of composition. I strongly urge all photographers, beginning or experienced, to avoid any instruction that claims there are—it’s bogus.
You have to be flexible at all times, and you have to work with the situation you’re in, even if it’s not the one you wanted. You’ll regularly encounter unexpected conditions, so you have to learn to quickly adapt your seeing and thinking to situations you may not have planned for. Too often the photographer wants a specific condition so badly that he closes down his eyes and mind when he fails to get the desired light, or particular atmospheric conditions, or the look he wanted from a portrait subject, or any other condition that he desperately wished for. In the examples that follow, I first share how I’ve adapted to lighting conditions that were not what I wanted, and then I analyze two photographs and discuss how they may pass or fail when judged according to any number of rules or conventions, or any such set of conditions that define success. My intention here is to encourage you to expand your flexibility and free you up to proceed without concerns about any rules you may have encountered, such as the well-known—and utterly absurd—rule of thirds, or others you may impose on yourself, knowingly or unknowingly.
Many photographers feel that good light is found only during the hours around sunrise and sunset. But if you confine your photography to those hours, you lose a lot of valuable time and miss opportunities to capture potentially good images.
Following a workshop at my home in 2013, I went out with several students who were staying an additional day to photograph locally. It was a bright, cloudless day; one not conducive to photographing in a rather dense forest. I felt too lazy to put my 4×5 camera equipment into its backpack and throw it over my shoulders, so I took my small Canon G10 digital camera with me. As we sauntered down a nearby forest road, I saw that it was impossible to contain the range of brightness of the forest in a single image. So instead of trying to make the impossible work, I asked myself, “can I find soft light within this area that could allow me to make a serious photograph?” The students and I discussed the lighting and tried to alter our preconceived notions about what we would photograph in the forest.
Henry Fox Talbot coined the word photography by combining the Greek words “photo,” meaning light, and “graphy,” meaning to draw, for he viewed it as “drawing with light.” It remains in that basic mode today. So I redirected my eyes from the high contrast of the brilliantly sunlit and deeply shadowed forest to subject matter that could be worked with under the circumstances.
I quickly stopped looking at the lovely forest in its entirety, and started noticing the sunlight edging the large plant leaves adjacent to the road and the other fully shaded leaves. Soon I was fully engaged with the large thimbleberry leaves (figure 8–1).
Figure 8–1: Thimbleberry Leaves
When the lighting is not what you want, it’s best to change your approach and photograph what you can in the lighting you have. Unless you’re in a studio, you may have no control over the lighting, particularly in an outdoor situation. So on a bright sunny afternoon in a heavily forested area near my home, I avoided the high contrast of the overall scene, and concentrated on details either in the shadows or with soft light raking across them. The new thimbleberry leaves in full shade offered an ideal option for the existing lighting situation.
Figure 8–2: Forest, Monte Cristo Grade Road
This photograph was made along the same forested road as the previous image of thimbleberry leaves, after the sun dropped below the mountain ridge. With soft light I was able to work with the magic of the full forest at the base of Mt. Pilchuck, just across the Stillaguamish River from my home.
Within an hour, the sun went behind the shoulder of the mountain. Now everything was in shade and there was soft light everywhere, allowing us to photograph into the forest, which had been too high in contrast and too broken up into sunlit and shaded segments to photograph earlier. Finally we had the type of lighting I’ve seen so often along that lovely road—lighting that is not randomly broken up, but seems to smoothly bring out the sparkle and richness of the forest to the greatest extent (figure 8–2).
I have observed over the years that the reason so many photographers feel that good light occurs only during sunrise or sunset is that they are intent on making a specific type of image, one that they feel can only be made during those early or late hours. They need to open up their thinking to the different types of images that can be made during the middle hours of the day. Let’s face it, there are a lot of hours between sunrise and sunset, and ignoring them reduces your output and your creative options greatly. I recommend that instead of putting your camera away during the many midday hours, you look for different subject matter that works with midday lighting.
If you’re working on outdoor portraiture, the same concepts apply. Contrasts between sunlit and shaded portions of the scene may prove to be uncontrollable. If this is the case, consider positioning your subject on the shaded side of a building or under the canopy of a large tree. Fill flash can open up shadow areas (on a backlit face, for example) that would be virtually impossible to see without some artificial light. Alternatively, a large reflector just outside the picture frame could reflect light back into that same shaded face. Folded up, this could be easily carried in your camera pack or case. It’s a simple solution, but one that may not immediately come to mind.
I made this photograph in 1979, between twelve thirty and one o’clock in the afternoon, looking down into Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah (figure 8–3). Together with my wife, our dogs, and several friends, I cross-country skied from Brian Head Resort to the image location, where we stopped for lunch. While munching on a sandwich, I noticed that the clouds that had filled the chasm of Cedar Breaks below us were beginning to rise and disperse, opening up some spectacular views of the layered cliffs below.
Without hesitation I set up my camera and aimed it toward the small conifer tree directly in front of me with the clouds and cliffs behind it. I wanted to create a feeling of depth and distance between the high plateau on which I was standing (at an altitude of about 10,500 feet) and the cliffs far below me in that National Monument. I chose the tree as an anchor point. I felt it would immediately draw the eye in because it stands apart from anything else in the scene and it serves as the high point of contrast against its surroundings. Furthermore, it would establish the feeling of depth that I was seeking between the foreground and background. I believe it accomplishes that goal.
Interestingly, several of my companions saw what I was doing and recommended that I step to the side and just deal with the deep canyon and clouds, thinking the tree would be a distraction from the main show. I felt the tree was needed.
I also wanted give the viewer a sense of the snow-covered slopes on either side of the tree. You can see how the ground rises up to the tree on both sides. But look again—the lower left portion of the image has no detail whatsoever. It’s pure white. When you first looked at that portion of the image, you likely read a soft slope into that area, mimicking the partially shaded slope leading up to the tree from the right side. Only now that I’ve pointed out the lack of detail in the lower left do you really notice that there’s nothing there.
Figure 8–3: Cedar Breaks, Winter
Photographed at midday, with a major object dead center, and no detail in the sunlit snow at the lower left, this image breaks any number of “rules.” It works for me. Does it work for you?
Now, it would be logical to assume that if a major portion of a landscape image is lacking any detail it would surely destroy the image, especially if that portion goes into a corner and is not the sky. Avoiding an element like this might be a “rule” of composition, but here it seems to have no destructive effect on the image. In fact, it’s likely that before I directed your attention to that portion of the image, you actually saw sloping lines leading up to the tree. In other words, your brain may have supplied detail that didn’t exist. Think of Haiku here, which conjures up a picture without explicitly describing it. That’s what your brain does in this case: it causes you to see detail that isn’t there.
So let’s review a few rules that have been broken in this example. First, it’s a landscape photograph made at midday. Many photographers implore you to photograph during the first hours of sunrise and the final two hours of sunset, saying that’s when you’ll find the good light. They’re absolutely right about that. They’ll also tell you to put your camera away in the hours between those times. They’re absolutely wrong about that. There are wonderful photographic opportunities at all times of the day; you just have to find the subject matter that conforms to the light. In a studio you can create the light you want; in the landscape you have to work within the confines of the light that you encounter. Cedar Breaks, Winter, which was made between noon and one o’clock, demonstrates that good light for landscape can be found throughout the day.
Second, although the main subject matter was the cliffs of Cedar Breaks interacting with the clouds, it’s not the first thing you notice. Your eye meets the tree first, then quickly puts it in relation to the landscape and cloudscape beyond.
Third, the tree is virtually in the dead center of the image. Many camera clubs and instructors warn against placing anything of importance dead center. But I think it works, and I think it works quite well. This is simply another instance of ignoring the so-called rules of composition, and going with my gut feeling of what would work best. (Notice that the moon in Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is virtually dead center.)
Finally, the pure white area of sunlit snow in the lower left corner defies all rules, and even some logic. It simply works, and it seems to work well enough that the eye supplies the missing detail. After printing and selling the image several times, I began to wonder if that blank area was really a problem that I was internally rationalizing as acceptable. So I returned to the darkroom, intent on darkening that corner to provide some detail. It turns out that the sunlit snow was absolutely even in lighting, so that by the time I burned (darkened) that area enough to obtain gray tonality, it was evenly gray with no tonal variation whatsoever. The print looked dim and dingy. I proved to myself that it was better left as I initially printed it: without any detail or tonality, allowing the viewer’s eye to fill in the details.
The second example I offer here is a digital color image made from the observation point high in the tower of the Heiliggeistkirche, or Holy Ghost Church, in Heidelberg, Germany (figure 8–4). The view of the old buildings was stunning, but there was no way I could set up my tripod and 4×5 camera to look straight down on the geometric abstractions of the rooftops below. Due to the thickness of the wall, the camera would have needed to be nearly three feet out from the center of the tripod, an obvious impossibility. The only option was to use my digital camera. But unless I were to hang myself out there along with the camera (not a terribly safe idea), I couldn’t possibly see what I was composing.
So with this image, I had to break my own rule—actually more of a dislike than a rule—and make the image first, then look at the monitor to see what I had done. I’ve long railed against the typical procedure of digital photographers who snap the shutter so quickly that they rarely compose before shooting. I strongly endorse the idea of carefully looking before reflexively shooting. Too many digital photographers shoot and then look, turning the idea of composing first on its head. I’ve criticized that practice in this book. But in this case, that’s exactly what I had to do to avoid risking my life.
I wanted the image to be perfectly rectilinear, completely squared up with its edges on all four sides. Of course, that would have been impossible unless I were directly above the center of the image looking straight down. So I made the bottom of the rooftops exactly parallel with the bottom of the frame. And of course, in order to do that, I had to make several exposures by hand-holding the camera well over the edge of the tower’s walls before I aligned the bottom perfectly. Later, I was able to square up the left, right, and top edges using the perspective crop in Photoshop.
So, while I may not have broken any rules in making this image, I had to overcome my own dictum, my personal rule, of always looking carefully—even if it’s done quickly—before snapping the shutter. In this case, it simply couldn’t be done, so I resorted to the only means at my disposal to obtain the image. It worked, and that’s what counts. And I had fun doing it.
These two examples both break rules. The first, a set of standard rules that so many people view as unbreakable. The second, my own self-imposed rule. There is an old saying that records are made to be broken. The same should apply to rules of composition. In fact, I believe it’s best to never even learn the so-called rules of composition so you don’t have to consciously break them. That, in itself, can be an impediment. Concerning my basic self-imposed rule of looking before snapping the shutter: I’ll still champion it, but I recognize there are times when even that one has to be ignored.
Early in your photographic career you may have to give a lot of thought to things like relationships between forms to optimize the visual intent of your composition. You’ll give a lot of thought to the intensity of colors, the range of contrast, and all the other variables of an image’s composition. After some time—maybe years, maybe decades, but never weeks or months—seeing those relationships, those colors, those contrasts, and all the other variables becomes so ingrained that you don’t really think about them; instead, you do them reflexively. It becomes part of you. It’s like driving a car—at first you’re thinking about every move, but after years of driving (and not crashing too many cars too often) you think about all sorts of other things while you’re driving. Hopefully you’re paying attention to your driving, but in essence, you’re not really thinking about it, just as you’re not thinking about walking when you’re walking. It becomes a natural act.
Composing an image becomes a natural act. But there will always be times when things are different, maybe very complex, and you are forced to seriously think about the composition. It’s like walking uphill on a rocky slope; that’s when you have to really think about walking. If you have the tools—not the rules—you’ll figure out how to start that photographic process in the best possible way. But you’ll find that most of the time, a certain composition simply feels right. When it does, go with it.
Figure 8–4: Rooftops, Heidelberg
In order to take this photograph, I had to hold my camera as far out from the thick tower wall as possible, making it impossible to see the composition before I pressed the shutter button. After several attempts, I was able to square up the image as I wanted, highlighting the abstract geometry of the rooftops below me.
In addition to being a photographer, I’m an environmentalist. I’ve been involved with environmental issues from the moment I became interested in photography. It was inevitable because my prime photographic interest was initially, and solely, the landscape, so protecting it and photographing it went hand in hand. I remain deeply involved in environmental issues today.
Years ago a student at one of my workshops approached me during a photography field session with the following question: “You have shown us a lot of wonderful photographs of the landscape, but almost none of people. Why not?”
I thought about it for a moment, then answered, “You can treat me like hell or I can treat you like hell, but life will go on. You can kill me or I can kill you, but life will go on. However, if we kill the planet, we’ll all die.”
After a very brief pause, he simply said, “Oh, I see.”
That’s how I felt years ago; I feel exactly the same way today. That is part of the reason I photograph the landscape. Photographing the landscape is photographing the earth, and most of my landscape photographs are of pristine, untouched land, the land without manmade alterations.
My environmentalism is driven by the obvious fact that if we don’t protect the planet that nurtures us all, we have no future. I see an overwhelming amount of evidence that we are failing to protect our planet, and thus creating a future that is bleak, indeed. But I have done little photographically to express my thoughts and concerns. Why not?
I recognize that photography has been quite effective at encouraging the creation of national parks and other protected land. Photographs made in the 1860s and early 1870s by William Henry Jackson were instrumental in the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park. Many of Ansel Adams’s early photographs of the central Sierra Nevada were instrumental in the creation of Kings Canyon National Park. Despite such sterling examples of photographic success, I have seen too many magnificently produced exhibits and books fall short of changing the actions of the public and politicians who exploit the land for its resources rather than protect it for its natural values.
Nick Brandt has made some of the most stunning photographs I’ve ever seen of wildlife in Africa, including elephants and other large mammals of the continent. Part of his intent is to help stop the slaughter of elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, and other magnificent creatures, whose tusks and horns and claws and teeth are sold in East Asia as aphrodisiacs or art objects for the ultra-wealthy. But the killing continues, and has dramatically increased in the past several years. There’s simply too much money in it for the poachers to ignore. Soon, all of these great animals will be exterminated from the wild, perhaps to be kept only on display in zoos. This is almost too painful to bear.
Seeing such failures of intent over the years, I have largely confined my environmental activism to writing about issues or getting directly involved in working on specific issues, rather than using photography to bring attention to those issues. Yet, on occasion, I have also attempted to produce photographs intentionally designed to tell a story about our mismanaged environment, only to find that the message wasn’t getting through; not so much because of the failure of the imagery itself, but because of the lack of environmental knowledge on the part of a high percentage of viewers.
The image I felt made the most complete and obvious case is one titled What Was...What Is (figure 8–5). Made less than a mile from my home, across the river on the lower slopes of Mt. Pilchuck in the state of Washington, it shows an ancient Western Red Cedar stump, logged a century ago, amidst the forest of tall, skinny trees that has grown up since the complete removal of that old growth forest. I felt that anyone who saw the image would compare the 14-foot diameter of the logged giant with the 14-inch diameters of today’s trees, and quickly see how our poor management has diminished and devastated the forest. But I was wrong. Too many viewers saw that there were new trees that had replaced the old—a positive thought. Few noticed that none of the newer trees were the same species as the stump. Few noticed that the total amount of wood in all the standing trees combined failed to equal the amount in the single tree logged a century ago. Few knew that the young, skinny trees would again be logged before they had a chance to get much larger. A few got the message I intended to convey, but it was far too few.
Figure 8–5: What Was...What Is
This image, also made on the lower slopes of Mt. Pilchuck near my home, was intended to show the ravages of industrial logging. The huge Western Red Cedar stump is roughly 14 feet in diameter, typical of old growth cedars long ago. Today, hundreds of tall skinny trees stand in its place in a dead zone with no foliage on the forest floor—not a suitable habitat for wildlife. This mismanagement on a grand scale is little understood by most viewers who simply see new trees replacing the old. The reality is far deeper, and far more disturbing.
It was a key disappointment for me, for I thought this would be the perfect image to counter the true but grotesquely misleading statement made by timber companies that there are more trees in today’s forests than ever before. Yes it’s true, but only because so many skinny trees have taken the place of the grand giants that once inhabited our forests. Few viewers noticed that the sterile forest floor is devoid of undergrowth—the shrubs, ferns, mosses, and young trees that provide necessary habitat for wildlife.
What we’re seeing here is not a forest, nor is it even a “tree farm” (to use the pleasant sounding euphemism given to us by logging companies); it is a raw lumber factory. It is a cluster of trees lacking an ecosystem. In fact, it’s not even a cluster of trees, and it’s certainly not a forest; it’s simply wood waiting to be cut down for human use. The photograph’s title was designed to point to the fact that what was once a forest is now an industrial lumber factory. This is painful to me, but I haven’t made the proper photographic breakthrough to end today’s devastating logging practices. I haven’t even slowed them down, nor has any other photography had the desired effect.
Figure 8–6: Cut Oak Tree, Agoura
This beautiful tree was cut down on Christmas Eve, when nearby residents were likely at home, oblivious to the nearby destruction taking place. I discovered it, and many others lining an intermittent streambed, the next morning when I jogged in the area.
Figure 8–7: Two Cut Oak Trees, Agoura
This was part of the string of trees cut down for a new development of suburban tract homes. On Christmas morning, shortly after I photographed the devastation, all cut trees were removed, the stumps were pulled out of the ground, and the ground was scraped, hiding all evidence that the trees had ever existed.
What Was...What Is wasn’t the only direct attempt I’ve ever made to photograph for purely environmental purposes. In the early 1980s I was living in a typical suburban tract of homes in Agoura in Los Angeles County, just east of the Ventura County line, north of Highway 101. It is pleasant, gentle oak, savannah landscape with rolling grassy hills dotted with oak trees, and oaks and sycamores lining the intermittent, seasonal stream-beds. I would jog on trails in that countryside adjacent to the tract in which my wife and I lived.
On Christmas morning in 1981 I went for a typical jog with my dog. Something felt weird, different. But as I huffed and puffed along, I couldn’t determine what it was. Upon my return, it suddenly became clear: all of the oak trees adjacent to the nearby streambed were lying on their sides, having been cut down the evening prior to my jog. The cutting of those trees took place on Christmas Eve, when everyone in the area would have been in their homes with family, oblivious to the destruction taking place nearby.
I quickly went home, grabbed a camera, and made photographs of the fallen trees (figures 8–6 and 8–7). Most people were now at home, likely unwrapping presents under their Christmas trees. My wife was out that morning, so when she returned home several hours later I told her about the tree cutting and took her there to see what was done.
There was nothing to see. Between the time I had photographed the cut trees and the time I took Karen there, the trees had all been removed, the stumps had been pulled out, the ground had been scraped and roughed up, and there was no indication that the trees ever existed! This was all accomplished on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, carefully timed to avoid being noticed. It was a clandestine exercise.
I was probably the only one who ever saw it. The cutting of trees in that area was against the law, but the developer saw the fines as little more than a business expense. With the trees out of the way, he was free to lay out his tract with utmost efficiency for maximum density and profit. Furthermore, he would name the streets Shady Oak Lane and other such pleasant names, to the rapture of young couples buying their first homes on these streets. In a triumph of semantics over substance, the name had replaced the reality, to the joy of everyone, especially the developer with his expanded wallet.
To the joy of everyone except me. I saw what happened. Yet I realized afterwards that devoid of recognizable landmarks within the photographs to determine the location, they would have been unlikely to serve as legal evidence of the destruction.
My photographs of the cut oaks in Agoura were documentation of clandestine destruction. But one final example that shows unexpected destruction is the photography I did over a period of nearly ten years along the Altamaha River in South Georgia, all the while thinking that the magnificence I was photographing was permanently protected (figures 8–8 and 8–9).
Starting in the late 1980s and running through much of the 1990s I held photography workshops annually in south Georgia. One of the field session sites was along the Altamaha River, about 45 miles inland from Brunswick, located on the Georgia Coast. Each year I brought 12–15 students there to visit this wonderfully pristine area. It was a fantastic area that served as a great workshop field site for years.
Today it would be useless. It was clearcut several years ago. Not a single tree remains standing in that area today.
These are just some of the natural degradations I have experienced over the years. I have seen spectacular mountain vistas ruined by trophy homes built at the base of the mountains, such as those on either side of I-15, north of Las Vegas and just south of the entry into the spectacular Virgin River Gorge. The once untouched, flat desert land that abruptly ends at the base of cliff-like mountains converging from either side of the highway toward the narrow gorge is now dotted with sprawling homes. It is an undesirable visual intrusion. Of course, the biggest atrocity is the highway running through the awesome gorge that should have been off limits to any manmade development whatsoever.
At the north end of the gorge I’ve watched the small, pleasant town of St. George, Utah, grow into an ugly behemoth of well over 100,000 residents today, sprawling over the adjacent landscape. In the process, I have seen small-scale but wonderful geological formations disappear before bulldozers that flattened the land to put in new, boring tract housing developments miles from the town I first saw. Today the landscape is unrecognizable compared to the land I first encountered in the mid-1970s. A flat expanse of suburbia has replaced the charming landscape of synclines, anticlines, and other unusual features that once existed. It is quite discouraging.
Perhaps within my general landscape imagery there may be a message about recognizing the natural values of our planet, and the importance of protecting it. I hope that to be the case. That’s part of the reason I’ve been drawn to the landscape photographically, and to environmental activism simultaneously. I can’t imagine photographing the land with such love and intensity for over 40 years without noticing the progressive destruction of the natural environment nearly everywhere, leading us to the very brink of irreversible disaster.
Figure 8–8: Sunrise Mist, Altamaha Cypress Swamp
On a cold December morning, this area turned to magic at sunrise, as steam rose up from the swamp waters and sunlight streamed through it. I had taken workshop groups to this magical area numerous times. Today, all the trees have been cut down.
Figure 8–9: Morning, Altamaha Swamp
Another morning, another time. Color, not black-and-white. The swamp was magnificent at all times, but somehow even more so in the early morning, when a slight fog almost always pervaded the atmosphere. It’s all gone now, having been clear-cut. Not a tree remains standing today.
But I have not felt that photography used strictly for environmental enlightenment and salvation is enough to turn hearts and minds around. Maybe I’ve just missed the boat on this issue. It seems to me that the only thing that changes the minds of politicians, who have a large say in the matter, is money, not photographs. But this involves another lengthy discussion tangential to the goals of this book.
I’ve read that a person will defend the things he loves. He’ll fight for those things. If someone attacks your wife or your child, you’ll fight for them, literally. You love them and you won’t sit by idly watching them attacked. So ask yourself, how much do you love the things you’re photographing?
It turns out that I love the natural world. That’s undoubtedly the reason it drew me into photography in the first place, and it’s the reason I’ve photographed it so passionately for over 40 years. It’s undoubtedly the reason that I’ve been involved in environmental organizations, causes, and battles throughout that same period. Our planet means so much to me that I can hardly imagine people who will not fight for it. So even though I photograph primarily for artistic purposes when I’m up in the mountains, down in a canyon, in a forest, at the seashore, or on the sand dunes, I harbor a hope that somewhere within the imagery, there is a message that the land is worth a lot, and that viewers will see that message.
My most cherished review was for an exhibit I had in the Los Angeles area in 2000, in which the Los Angeles Times reviewer included the following sentence, “In short, it’s an exhibition that might have the persuasive power to give developers pause before ravaging special corners of our planet.” It felt good to see that in print, despite the fact that none of the photographs were made with the thought of protecting the natural environment as a primary concern of mine. Apparently, in the aggregate, that message was conveyed. Perhaps because it’s an overriding concern of mine at all times.
I look to the concerned readers of this book to plumb the depths of your imagination, insights, and creativity to see how photography can be used to more effectively make the statement that I have tried but largely failed to make with my imagery. In What Was...What Is I thought the intended message was indisputably clear, but I failed to realize how few among us are cognizant of the complex natural processes in an untouched forest, or in any untouched natural environment. It appears we’re becoming progressively less aware of natural processes as we become more urbanized. Today, most of us living in cities and suburbs believe food comes from supermarkets and water comes from the faucet. I fear that we are removing ourselves further and further from the natural environment that supports us all. We need new thinking about how photography can be used to convey the importance of nature to the people and the politicians.
This is an area in which I have not done well, and I urge others to try to convey the correct message better than I have been able to do.
Of course, if your passion lies elsewhere, you have to identify that passion and determine how to apply your photographic skills to make it come alive for the viewer. You want to make the strongest statement you can about people, or architecture, or food, or sports, or whatever draws you in. It starts with identifying your passion; it ends with making the visual statements that cause others to take note.
However you choose to express yourself photographically, keep in mind that you are part of an absolutely necessary aspect of the human spirit: the need to express oneself through art. Every society that has ever been studied engages in visual arts and music—from the ancient cave dwellers at Lascaux or Altamira in Europe to the Inca, Aztecs, Maya, and Anasazi of the Americas; to ancient people throughout the world; to people living today in such remote jungle areas that they have never had any contact with the modern world; to those of us living in the most modern, interconnected regions of the world. This is so universal that it can only be looked upon as a human need, perhaps on par with food and water. It is clear that art is a human necessity, and it may be the only thing that separates humanity from other species. That and the human ability to store and pass on knowledge through such inventions as libraries and other storehouses of information.
Photography is part of the art world. Just as most art critics balked at the new visionary way of seeing brought about by the impressionists in the mid-1800s, most balked at photography as an art form for decades, dismissing it as mechanical and simplistic. Those objections have long since been laid to rest. Today photography is universally accepted as a valued art form, and is regularly displayed in museums. Digital imagery has been accepted into that pantheon with almost blinding speed compared to the century-long reluctance to accept traditional photography, a reluctance that finally disappeared in the last quarter of the 20th century. It is an isolated critic or artist who still scoffs at photography as a fine art.
Photography has unlimited potential. Like the sciences, other arts, or business, it is limited only by lack of imagination, lack of insight or depth, and lack of creativity. Both traditional and digital photography offer as much or more within their arsenals of capabilities and “tricks” than you’ll ever need to accomplish your expressive goals. Within your own limits of imagination, insight, and creativity, you can do anything you can think of doing. I urge every reader, every photographer, to push those limits beyond what you thought they could be. There is more to be done by digging deeper into areas that have been mined before, and there are always new areas to delve into for the first time.
Perhaps the preceding chapters and all the words and photographs raise more questions than answers in response to the question of “what is creativity?” It turns out that creativity probably involves many things—time, effort, dedication, thought, enthusiasm, experimentation—each of which is important by itself, and maybe even more important in combination with others, leading to even more creativity.
People who create a whole new way of seeing—think Monet and the French impressionists—are often credited with being highly creative. The same can be said of musicians, where the greatest names changed the direction for both subsequent composers and the audience. Monet, van Gogh, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and other innovators were generally vilified by critics and the public alike for their innovations, but in time they won out. When Stravinsky’s now-popular The Rite of Spring was first performed in Paris, it led to a true riot.
But not all innovators ever gain true acceptance. Schoenberg’s atonal twelve-tone scale, for example, has reached a level of partial acceptance with critics, and apparently a somewhat lower level of acceptance with general audiences, but his music still has not achieved the same level of acceptance as that of Stravinsky or Copland or his other contemporaries.
Man Ray, as I noted in chapter 3, was exceptionally creative in his photographic experiments in the sense that he probed visual ideas that never occurred to others, producing imagery that was entirely new. But according to my aesthetic tastes, little of it is appealing. I give Man Ray high marks for creativity and low marks for beauty. As such, I think his influence on photography was severely diminished from what it could have been.
Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and a small group of other photographers, largely clustered in and around Carmel, California, banded together in the 1930s to form Group f/64 in response to the “pictorialists” of the day, who were led by William Mortensen. Mortensen and his group produced images that were slightly or greatly out of focus, intended to be dreamlike and evocative, and they had a degree of public popularity. Perhaps their style was based on the ideas of the impressionist painters, where a close viewing shows brushstrokes but no detail. Group f/64—which took its name from the closed-down aperture that produces exceedingly high depth of field, making virtually everything in the image appear crisp and sharp—fought against the pictorialists with the idea of revealing everything in exceptionally rich detail. Eventually, it seems, Group f/64 won the battle. Not too many people today sing the praises of Mortensen and the pictorialists, but Weston, Adams, and the others are often considered icons.
Figure 8–10: Meadow, Trees and Mountain Slopes, Winter
Heavy snow covers Mt. Pilchuck (elevation 5,342 feet) each winter, and even reaches our home at an elevation of 980 feet. Following such snow, the scene is magical, a true winter wonderland. I stood on our driveway to make this exposure, viewing the trees and mountain slopes across our front meadow.
These photographers are honored today not so much for their crisp, detailed, innovative way of seeing, but for the images themselves. Whether it’s Weston’s Pepper #30 or Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, we tend to focus on the image, not on the fact that it’s sharp and detailed. So while developing a new way of seeing may make the work stand out, and may make the artist stand out as a creative innovator, it seems to be the strength of the image and the emotional depth it conveys that ultimately becomes the standard by which it is judged.
I have chosen to work in the tradition of the silver print that is similar to those produced by Group f/64. My photographs tend to have sharpness and clarity throughout, with only a few exceptions. I like the look of the traditional silver print, and never sought to come up with a new way of producing a print, though I have created some different ways of developing a negative. I enjoy color as well, and today I spend about equal amounts of time with color imagery and black-and-white.
Figure 8–11: Storm Cloud Panorama
We’ve had some rough storms at our abode over the years, so when I saw these clouds spread across the sky, I grabbed my digital camera to photograph them quickly, and then headed for cover, expecting the worst. But little happened. Although it looked fierce, it led to nothing more than a few drops of rain and a little bit of a breeze.
Figure 8–12: Mt. Pilchuck Ridge, Winter Sunset
Living up in the mountains is quite wonderful, for I never know what beautiful occurrances will happen next. There is a rugged ridge leading to the summit of Mt. Pilchuck that I find particularly attractive, especially when newly fallen snow has covered it (notice some snow on the lower, forested slopes below it) and a soft pink, sunset glow envelopes it.
Hopefully the images I have produced have some depth of creativity, whether it’s new subject matter I photographed that had never been photographed previously (the slit canyons or my colorful polished rock details); or different ways of creating whole new worlds that I would like to see through my imagination and the combination of negatives (my ideal landscapes); or simply the pursuit of a deeper understanding of subject matter that has long been investigated (general landscapes, sand dunes, architectural subjects, the “Darkness and Despair” series); or anything else I may have photographed. I cannot judge the level of creativity of my own work. Furthermore, any such value judgment on my part would be wholly immaterial, for it is others who will render that determination, either today or in the future, should my work be looked at in the future.
I have not striven for creativity as a goal in itself. Instead, whatever level of creativity I have achieved has been the inevitable product of my deep love of photography; my keen interest in always looking for new and different subject matter, and new ways of seeing that subject matter; and my many years of photographing. I try to keep my mind open to anything and everything, though I’m sure that I have unknowingly blocked things off that I should have been open to. I suspect we all do that. I’ve looked primarily for beauty and for the pleasure of simply making images. I have enjoyed doing just that. I’ve traveled and photographed in a number of places on this planet, but there are many, many more that I have never seen and never will see. I’ve enjoyed my travels immensely. I’ve enjoyed going back to some of the same places time after time. My goal has been primarily to enjoy the day, the place, the ambience, and if possible, to make a good photograph along the way.
Fortunately for me, I also enjoy working in the darkroom. And over the past several years, I’ve found that working digitally in the field and on the computer is also extremely rewarding. Sometimes I’ll grab my little digital camera to carry on one of my several daily dog walks and find some of the loveliest, most unexpected things along the way. Sometimes I run back to the house to grab the little Canon G10 upon seeing an ephemeral wonder that I’ll never see again but may be able to record quickly before it disappears. Many photographs have been made on our typical morning, midday, or evening walks around our open frontyard meadow, which affords us magnificent views in all directions (figures 8–10 through 8–12).
Figure 8–13: Sunbeams Through Trees
Cold, wet conifer trees were warmed by intense winter sunlight, sending plumes of steam outward and upward from the trunks. I was fortunate enough to have time to run home, grab my 4×5 camera and tripod, and race back in time to photograph the sunbeams bursting through the forest behind our home.
One of the dog walks on our “back 40” forest trail in late winter of 2013 was especially notable. It was a cold but bright, sunny day. As we were walking toward the sun on our way back to the house, it was impossible to miss the brilliant rays of sunlight streaming through the steam that was coming off the tree trunks under the intense sun. With no camera in hand I began running to the house to get my trusty G10, but I quickly realized that the contrast would be too much for it to handle. I also realized that the situation would last, since the brilliant sun was still warming the wet trees. So I opted for my 4×5 film camera, grabbed my tripod and my backpack containing all my 4×5 equipment, and ran back (if you can call that running) with enough time to make the photograph (figure 8–13). It was extraordinarily exciting.
Every form of photography I engage in has proven to be a source of great pleasure, an escape from the real world that dominates the news and the degradation of our planet that seems inexorable. I will say without hesitation that whenever I can spend a day hiking in the mountains, canyons, forest, seashore, desert, or an ancient town, it is a day of great pleasure and reward for me. If I can produce a photograph along the way that pleases me, it’s icing on the cake. But the cake is always the day spent in any of those attractive and important places. When I have the time to spend a full day in the darkroom bringing my negatives to life, or on the computer bringing my RAW files to completion, it’s a day of equal pleasure, and even of personal triumph.
To me, that’s what counts, no matter how creative or non-creative my photography is thought to be in the present or the future. I’m simply having a lot of fun with it. I believe that enthusiasm and fun have to be the first prerequisites of photographic success, and perhaps of success in any field. I urge you to look inward to see how much fun you’re having with your photography. I hope yours equals mine. As I explained in the introduction, much of this book is filled with personal anecdotes, with the hope that within those anecdotes there are some tidbits of information that you can apply to yourself, your way of seeing, and your passion for the subject matter that means the most to you.
If you are going to be successful in your photography, it will have to be because you’re enjoying it immensely. You can never do it through assignments. Instead, assignments have to come from within. You have to follow your passion, whether you have the opportunity to do it once a week or once a month, or whenever you can. I learned that in 1972 when I opted to drive to the Sierra Nevada for personal photography instead of taking a lucrative commercial rush job. Now, more than 40 years later, it’s still just as electrifying to me to photograph something that really rings my chimes.
You’ll have to find your own passion. You’ll have to devote some serious time to learning the technical aspects that articulate your statements. Then you’ll find the time to do some extraordinary things. It will happen because you’ll make it happen.
Best of luck...and more importantly, best of fun.
