Photo Comments Page - fine art photos by jim coe, Everyday Magic!

rules?
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Art & Attitude: "Rules? We don't got to have no stinking rules!"

Potentially wonderful photographs are all around you! The difficulty is in seeing them.

The key to seeing this photo was finding an unusual point of view from which to see a very usual subject. By crawling around on my hands and knees (in a public place yet), I discovered this juxtaposition of two weeds and the sun.

The lesson here is that you have to explore and get your hands (or knees) dirty. Interesting images are everywhere, but that doesn't mean they are obvious.

So, the main rule is to break the "rules" whenever necessary. In this case, "Don't shoot directly into the sun.", or "Don't make a spectacle of yourself in public.", or "Compose by the Rule of Thirds."

Remember, the image is everything. The only "rules" you need flow from the image itself. Part of learning to see in photography is learning to see how the image wants you to express it.

Real Rule #1: If something you do makes your image stronger - do it. If it doesn't - avoid it.

"No rules"? Am I saying that any kind of trick is OK, as long as it improves the photo? No. I'm saying that if something really improves the photo it's not a trick - it's a technique.

Tricks are those things that don't work. In this sense, a technique makes the photographer's vision more understandable to the viewer. A trick, on the other hand, gets in the way. It adds something extra, obscuring that original experience. A healthy dose of pragmatism is required here.

Ansel Adams said it so well, when he stated that a creative photographer making an exposure is like a composer creating a new piece of music. He compared the processing that comes later to an orchestra playing that new music. The players can be true to the original music and composer, bringing out their best, or they can ruin it. What they can't do is make it any better than it was written.

In photography, work is often done after the image is first seen, in a vain attempt to improve on the original creative vision - more or less obscuring it.

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"Right now a moment of time is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint! To do that we must put all else out of our minds. We must become that moment, make ourselves a sensitive recording plate... give the image of what we actually see. Forgetting everything that has been seen before our time."
-- -----Paul Cezanne (Painter)

the medium is the message
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Fig. 1	Fig 2

Art & Attitude: In photography, the medium really is the message - and that message is "Light"
All photographs use light, but many are also about light.

Figure 1 is partly about how lighted objects going behind a back lighted screen become dark shadows, until they come out from behind the screen and become lighted objects again. This light/shadow play and strong back lighting (plus selective focus) is what keeps this complex scene from being unreadable.

Figure 2, on the other hand, is a very simple image, brought to life by one interesting shadow.

The photographer's medium is not film or some other recording material - it is light itself.

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"Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or the bamboo, if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in so doing you must let go of your subjective preoccupation with yourself....Your poetry arises by itself when you and the object have become one."
- -------Basho (Poet and poetry teacher)

time machines

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Art & Attitude: Time Rules
Seconds after I took this photo, the blades of grass came apart. You have to be in the right place at the right time (in the right space/time). This is not news to most photographers.

But there are also other ways a camera is a time machine. For example, you can make an exposure so long that people walking in front of your camera become invisible ghosts. Or you can freeze a bullet penetrating a light bulb. My camera was also a time machine in the sense that you and I can share today my experience of discovering these two blades of grass some years ago.

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"Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking."
------Goeth (Philosopher)

photos everywhere

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Art & Attitude: Photos Are Where You Find Them
I often find photos in the most ordinary places. Many of my subjects are nothing special either. They are just the beautiful things all around us that we usually don't make the effort to truly see.

I believe that a spectacular photo of something ordinary is more interesting than an ordinary photo of something spectacular. The latter is about something else, the former is something else.

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"If you can't find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?"
-- -----Dogen (Zen patriarch)

Instant collage
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Reflections:
Before there was such a thing as photodigital collage there were reflections. Find the right subjects, lighting and angles - presto! Reflections become instant collage!

But instant collages don't hold still, so you'll have to be quick!

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Definition of architecture... "The magnificent, knowledgeable and correct application of volume and light."
------Le Cobusier (Architect)