Photography as a Process
Photography as an art form
seemsto
emphasize pushing the limits of light and
composition through the framing lens of the camera. Learning
to see potential in
an ordinary subject such as a landscape, close up of a
flower, portrait or action scene
provides a creative challenge for me as photographer.
My eye is constantly composing and
re-composing scenes as I move through the day.
An example today was driving on Highway 101, a major highway
linking San
Francisco with smaller cities and towns in Northern
California. I was only driving a
few miles today for an appointment and yet my eyes were
seeing unusual forms and
colors that could have been engaging subjects for a
photograph. There was a man
standing at the entrance of the county garbage dump taking a
picture of traffic using
a tripod and wearing a funny crushed hat. Cars were speeding
by perhaps only
faintly glimpsing his presence near the roadway.
As I passed by, my mind went to a
recent automobile crash at that waste disposal site
entrance where a person was killed by trying to cross
oncoming traffic. I wondered if
the man with the camera was recording the flow of traffic
for a lawsuit involving
the crash. This
man seemed to be using the photograph as a record of perhaps
an
unfortunate event. That was my fantasy since I could not
stop to inquire further.
Approaching photography as a process
is the counterpoint that it offers to the usual
emphasis on pictures as a record or as an end product.
Of
course I want a picture to
turn out to be sharp and clear without being over or under
exposed unless that is
what I am striving for in a composition.
The process of taking the time to
compose a picture that uses the available light and
that takes the eye to a focal point in the picture is as
important to me as having the
perfect picture. Sometimes I am surprised that what I
thought I was "shooting"
turns out to be something different.
I
was shopping in San Francisco last winter and there were
about fifteen white
round outdoor cafe tables in an interesting pattern. The
weather was cold so the
table were abandoned yet I was moved to stop and focus my
attention on them. I
was not sure why I found the pattern of empty round white
tables, without chairs,
stimulating, but they definitely captured me. I was not as
excited about what a
picture of the chair pattern might be like when developed as
I was to stop for a
moment andto
focus on the ghostly and symmetrical nature of the white
tables. I
rememberanticipating
framing the scene even though I did not have my tripod
with me. The light was flat yet adequate and the chair
pattern seemed to floating in
space.