If you have read anything about landscape photography you would know that the one factor that will absolutely positively in any circumstance ruin your portrait so much to the point that it isn't even a landscape photo anymore is always a person. Somehow, adding a human to a beach, a mountain, a field apparently destroys said spot.
Now, from the perspective of a photographer that shoots faces, bodies and the like, the mentality is practically reverse. When I am driving along and see this immaculate tree, towering over miles of rolling hills behind it, I see the beauty and admire it and I might take a picture. However. What my eyes, my ocular pallete desires more than a lone landscape is to see a man or a woman there, a newborn baby, a couple enamored with one another. With the addition of man, that mountain face covered in snow, that pristine forest, that meadow with a fresh bed of poppies becomes a shelf for the epitome of life. It walks from a grandiose "not-good" to a magnificent, orchestration of awe-striking "good".
Back in May I did a show at Radina's which displayed some work from my adventures. It was something I had been wanting to do for a couple years, and once a door opened up, I was all over it. I scrambled up the money to buy what I needed (prints, hanging supplies, gumption) and got that show up on the walls. In my opinion it was unsuccessful, not even glimpsing the point of breaking even. Mostly, my biggest triumph of it all was discovering the way I give myself to certain photos. On wedding days, the photos seem to be this priceless gift, a desperate (sometimes) attempt to spare every last memory from the day. It isn't for myself. The act of presenting of gift to someone makes me work in a certain way.
When I am galavanting through a forest though, and I come upon something that no one has ever seen and no one will ever see again, and to be quite honest, my camera lacks the ability to fully capture, I become the couple enamored, the newborn under the tree, the man rooting himself at the base of creation. These are the moments when the photos are for no one but myself. It wasn't a wedding or a casual snapshot. It was something that I contributed part of myself to. What part, I am not sure, but I know that I was in those photos.
The show left me feeling cheaper, as though my memories were given to people that didn't deserve them or appreciate them for that matter. It was as though I posted boudoir pictures and became an object for all to gawk at or simply ignore if they so pleased. Without trying, I became that person in the landscapes that didn't belong. While I didn't sell my photos, I sold myself. Next time I go in to something like that, I need to weigh what exactly I am giving.
Today, however, I give you a couple enamored. Except more later this week:
Today, however, I give you a couple enamored. Except more later this week:
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