A Flash of Light
Life is not a continuum. It is not one big sweeping expanse of time and experience. Life is a collection of moments held in trust somewhere inside your cranium. Not all moments are equal. Some are worth keeping like rare coins, but most are dribbled away in a rush to buy the next moment and the next and the next million.
The same is true of photographs. Millions of pictures will be taken while you read this. Why? We all want to tell the world that we exist, right now, in this place. But some photographs are special.
Ansel Adams was in love with radiance. He spent his life chasing it. Light has much to say and he listened. And watched. His work can be so entrancing that the captured images go beyond the mastery of the camera to a vision that gets in your head and won’t leave.
Some photographs appear to be ordinary, but then punch you in the gut with a swirl of emotions and conflicts: a bomber crew before being shot out of the sky. A village just before the earthquake.
Or a soldier the day he was killed; forever frozen in a split-second of being alive.
For Clifford Wheeler, it wasn’t about catching a flash of reflected light. He wanted to create something tangible. Something you could share. He would stand in the middle of a place and wrap himself in an expression of beauty by using a panoramic exposure. You are there with him as it folds around you, engulfing you in the marvel of creation where practically every molecule has equal importance.
Kym Kamra shoots “Street.” It looks simple. Just point and shoot. Take a hundred visual images and pick one—There’s a dozen apps that can artsy it up. Who needs life experiences? A child can do it.
But no, it has to be more than a statement of fact or a glitzy picture signifying nothing. There has to be a connection—a transfer of meaning...a life force that is built on seeing and touching. If not, what is the meaning of anything? Is everything a charade?
Colleen Spenser Henderson would photograph something unremarkable but there was always something special about it. A story. She is there in the picture, the lead actor, the central point of the composition, telling a timeless narrative of the changing idea interrupted in its changing.
As we are. We’re the lead actor in our own ever-changing fable, telling a timeless narrative of the changing. We’re floating in time among the currents and ripples of hope and wishes, fighting free of the anchors of trauma and despair.
Thanks for the feature in your article Jim, so appreciate your support of my work. My Street shooting is a bit of a journal of my days. As an Artist this Historic Union Station is where I returned to America for my first job back to Art. I still pass thru this amazing structure frequently, never without one of my cameras. It is a place of travel, perfect for shooting the street. Travel, with your camera and you will go far.
I used it because it somehow captures the Union station I have known through the bad times to good times and back again. There is always heart and soul in your work. That elevates the artist above the hobbyist, and even above many dedicated picture takers who wish to keep a record.