Photography has always been
something that caught my eye. Like most people, I am drawn to all the pretty
pictures I see in magazines, on Facebook, and countless other places. I have
always believed there was something about photography that related to me in a
deeper way. When I entered high school I bought my first real camera. It was a
Kodak point and shoot with 400mm zoom and I loved it! I began taking pictures
of anything and everything. I soon learned how to edit photos using some basic
software and began to mold the photos to my perception of what I had seen.
Cameras do not know what the scene actually looks like, so they use the
resources they have to make a guess. Using the manual mode is the best way to
control how your camera sees the world. Everyone has heard the phrase “Pictures
don’t lie”, well, that’s not true at all. As everyone knows with Photoshop you
can do nearly anything to a picture. Photography is not objective. It is
subjective. Many people will claim this is all a recent development because of
Digital Photography. Again, WRONG! This picture of a tree is from 1969 and was
taken with a film camera. Jerry Uelsmann was a photographic genius and is still
producing one of a kind prints from negatives to this day.
Untitled, 1969
Homage to Man Ray,
1997
Paul Caponigro 1964
The picture of an apple is perhaps one of my favorites and
was taken in 1964 by Paul Caponigro. Most photographers try to create something
that is aesthetically pleasing even if it distorts reality. Photography can try
to capture reality but no matter how hard we try it will always be subjective.
As a photography student I experimented with darkroom printing techniques and
began to understand that this is not at all a recent development of digital
photography. Dodging and burning are old techniques that are used to control
the amount of light that hits a specific part of the emulsion and can control light/dark
areas.
Next time you look at that beautiful $3000 print in some gallery
just remember this: Every photograph is the photographer’s depiction of his own
memory, not the truth. For me, many of my photographs are not even supposed to
capture reality. I try to create a new world through my photographs. I do not
care what others think of my photographs, I just try to create something
beautiful that reminds me of a place I have been but shows me the things I may
have missed.
Every time I look at an advertisement photo I now try to
imagine what the photographer did to achieve the photograph. Photographs
capture our emotions, and that is why they sell. You may have a perfect print
but if it doesn't speak to us at a deeper level it will never sell. I am
curious to see where photography is headed in the coming decades. It has
constantly been progressing and will continue to do so and find new ways to
capture our attention. Photography plays a huge role in advertising and as
photography changes, so will advertising.
The following photograph has obviously been heavily edited. Following
it are the steps I took to get it there.
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