Very early when I got my first 35 mm camera, I noticed that very few of my pictures showed people.  Of course, there were family and friends, and over the years more and more of those.  However, the pictures my eye liked most had no people in the frame.  I say “my eye” because it is like something other than my intentional thought deciding what might be interesting.  So I’ve gone with it!

 

Looking more closely at what my eye decided to capture, it seemed that my photos were taken just before or after someone might have been in the frame.  Or maybe there was someone just outside the frame somehow attached to what my eye was seeing.  Examples would be Sherman Garage, Abiquiu Window, Hwy 50 House with Chair, and all those “places to sit”.  These are very different from the scenics and landscapes I have taken over the years.  Except for a few photos I don’t have the patience to build the connection between a pretty scene and the viewer.  Does that mean my eye is looking for images that already have connections embedded in them?

 

In these later years, I have come to value the craft of photography more and more.  I can now see that poorly focused or poorly printed images undermine the impact.  This one could have been a really good picture if only I had been more careful of the depth of field or shutter speed or visualized the contrast range in advance.  Unfortunately, you don’t get a do-over on a blurred or overexposed photo.  The craft master is Ansel and he has articulated all the important principles of image-making.  Ansel said it’s all about the light.  You cannot take a picture of something, but only of how the light falls on something or someone.

 

While I sometimes mourn the passing of the need for darkroom skills, the truth is that the craft is easier now with image stabilization and Photoshop Elements.  It may mean that “anyone” can take a sharp, well-exposed picture, but it also means that someone who knows the value of controlling all those elements can now do that much more effectively.  The new challenge is to use all these great tools to get exactly what my eye was drawn to in the first place.

 

So, yesterday someone was in my office and looked at a picture I had taken of an old, rusted-out car in the tall grass.  She said, “You must have a story behind that picture.”  I said, “No, not really, but someone else probably has a story about it.”  As usual, I don’t know what I think until I hear what I say.  What fun to think about making up stories based on favorite photos!  There was clearly something buried there, to begin with, now all that is needed is the effort to move outside the frame and uncover it.