The Meaning of Life - A Photograph

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Photography Advice Corner

Christoph:

I live in Vermont. There are endless photography opportunities and one of my favorite subjects is small bridges, especially in the Fall. I have photographed hundreds of them. Some I really like, but most of my images don't have the impact I experience when I’m there. How do I create better images, or how do I need to "see" my surroundings? - John Eddington

Hello John...

Visualizing images that inspire deals with creativity and is one of the most difficult endeavors of any artist. Seeing unique images or properties that exist in nature is the second biggest difficulty we come across in our efforts to create an artistic work.

If it were easy, everyone would be an artist. The Art of Seeing requires we break our mold of familiarity that our senses reside in – this is easily verbalized but difficult to do. Our life’s physical and emotional securities rely on familiarity and repetitiveness. Without residing within these two experiences consistently, we would live in fear and emotional chaos.

So, we are, by nature, extremely resistant to changing our point of view – creativity, therefore, comes with difficultly. True artists (perhaps not all, but most) like Ansel Adams, Picasso, Van Gogh and many others, reside in a world of high emotional tension.

But pathways to stepping out of our mold of sameness can be discovered and travelled. As artists and photographers, when we come upon a natural scene or subject, we need to take pause. For example, if you come across a small bridge crossing a river, take a recess from your initial instinct to photograph it from the position or perspective of where you stand. That image has been done millions of times.

Instead, walk around the bridge a full 360 degrees. Climb the hill to view it from a top angle. Step down to the banks of the river – first one side, then the other – and again look at viewpoint and perspective. While at each different position, change lenses, view the bridge and surroundings through your 50mm lens, through your wide angle, if you have one; zoom in for a more abstract view and photograph portions of the bridge – perhaps with only a piece of it in the scene, representing an entrance or exit, depicting a sense of movement from or heading toward a destination.

Instead of seeing a bridge, what lines, curves, shapes, forms or geometries are presented? In its construction, what textures, patterns or colors are unique? Is there an interesting contrast between the bridge and its surroundings? Are there shadows that express a specific emotion, mood or communication? Is the bridge in harmony with nature or does it express a great disturbance?

Image © 2011 Jorge De Sousa



In other words, don’t photograph the bridge – photograph its life, its emotional expressions and your interpretations of its meaning and reason for existence.

Christoph