{"id":2266,"date":"2011-11-24T09:25:06","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T17:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=2266"},"modified":"2011-11-24T09:31:55","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T17:31:55","slug":"what-else-things-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/24\/what-else-things-are\/","title":{"rendered":"What Else Things Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brooks Jensen published a very provocative article in the current issue of Lenswork.\u00a0 He delves into a topic that I\u2019ve thought about ever since I first picked up a digital camera.\u00a0 It relates to the question of whether or not it is OK to manipulate photographs.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always contended that it is not only OK but, at least for the kind of photography I do, it is required.\u00a0 The photographs I create reflect my interpretation of the natural world around us.\u00a0 Therefore, their subjects and contents are going to reflect something of me.<\/p>\n

Jensen goes several steps farther by identifying three major types of photography \u2013 Documentary, Personal Narrative and Imaginative.\u00a0 Jensen describes Documentary photography as telling \u201csomeone else\u2019s story.\u201d\u00a0 What a great way of describing it.\u00a0 Clearly, then, in documentary photography, the photographer strives to be as true to the subject as possible and minimize or eliminate his or her own coloration or bias.\u00a0 The goal is total objectivity.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the Personal Narrative type of photography the photographer tells his or her own story.\u00a0 In this style of photography the door is open to interpretation and imagination but the content is still grounded in reality.\u00a0 As Jensen states, \u201cto succeed as artwork, they must go beyond the personal and provide us with something that touches on the universal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third type of photography is Imaginative.\u00a0 Jensen describes this as \u201ca photographer creating an entirely new world in the viewer\u2019s imagination.\u201d\u00a0 The world of imagination as it applies to photography can take on many forms from the hyper-real to the symbolic to total fantasy.<\/p>\n

Ansel Adams and Edward Weston might be considered to be hyper-real as their wonderful photographs are not faithful depictions of reality but rather go beyond reality to show us more than what is merely real.\u00a0 Their photographs may be believable but recreating them without resorting to manipulation would not be remotely possible.<\/p>\n

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The symbolic can take us beyond the objective into the world of deeper meaning.\u00a0 These photographs can be the gateway to more universal concepts, values and ideals.<\/p>\n

\"Battery<\/a><\/p>\n

The fantastic looses contact with reality and provides the viewer with the freedom to wander wherever his or her imagination wishes to go.\u00a0 In some ways, the fantastic may not have an anchor in anything we recognize.\u00a0 But when these photographs work they spark the imagination and the viewer can construct his or her own interpretation and reality.<\/p>\n

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This brief discussion of Jensen\u2019s article just scratches the surface.\u00a0 But I think it provides a good frame of reference to help us better understand our own photography.\u00a0 Personally, I\u2019m prompted to ask myself what my photographs say and what they trigger in the viewer\u2019s mind and imagination.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to conclude this post by repeating a quote from Minor White.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

We do photography workshops.\u00a0 Come on out and join us.\u00a0 Click here to check us out.<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also check out our photography.\u00a0 Click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

(982)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do your photographs say – about the things you photograph and about you? What do your photographs trigger in your viewers’ minds and imaginations?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,24,5],"tags":[349,57,350,13,164,1358],"class_list":["post-2266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-photographer-as-artist","category-photography-as-art","tag-imagination","tag-landscape","tag-manipulation","tag-photography","tag-reality","tag-workshops"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-Ay","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2266"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}