Over the years I have become aware that to many people the
narrative surrounding an image may be as important as the image itself. The image is considered a mere touchstone to
the life experience of the artist creating the image.
I have a different criterion since I consider an image from
the perspective of how it will look on my walls. The experience of the artist may be interesting
but it is not critical to my enjoyment.
I don’t care that Ansel hopped up on top of his car, didn’t have a light
meter but he knew how may foot-candles the moon had, and exposed Moonrise. Good for him but I liked the image before I
knew that about how he shot it. It’s not
irrelevant but it’s not important to my enjoyment of Moonrise.
I recently attended a program on the history of the National
Gallery of Art. What struck me the most
was that the benefactors, who gave a lot of art to the nation, had previously used
that art to decorate their houses. They had
not selected the art to create a gallery; they were decorating their living
spaces. In fact, the restorers had to
clean the smoke residue off one Van Gogh because it had been hung over the
mantle of a fireplace.
When I consider my life story, the narrative does not seem
exceptional. I have lived an extremely
ordinary life. The images are not the
result of a mission or exceptional circumstances. Most of the images have either come to me or
I’ve put myself in a place of extraordinary beauty where they have been easy to
find. The recent flower images are
possibly an exception, but they are beautiful, easy to do, don’t take a lot of
time, and provide me something I can work on in the studio. Hard to build a narrative that anyone would
care about out of that.
All that said, I really enjoy photography and hope to continue
doing it for a long time, even if mine doesn’t have a great narrative
surrounding it. One of the great things
about being a photographer is that you can capture the beauty you see, to enjoy
again and to share with others.
