{"id":4219,"date":"2019-01-11T19:07:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-12T03:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=4219"},"modified":"2019-01-11T19:25:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-12T03:25:05","slug":"finding-the-soul-of-a-photograph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2019\/01\/11\/finding-the-soul-of-a-photograph\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the Soul of a Photograph"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often get asked if I manipulate my photographs.\u00a0 <\/span>My answer is always, \u201cYes, of course!\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>But no one has ever asked, \u201cWhy?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>And I have an answer for that too.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cBecause my camera doesn\u2019t know what I\u2019m feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

For me, making a photograph is making art. I want to do more than capture where I\u2019ve been and what I\u2019ve seen.\u00a0 <\/span>I want to share with you what I feel when I\u2019m out there.\u00a0 And that is often more intense than what my eyes see.<\/p>\n

I was in Long Valley last summer preparing for a photography class I was teaching for the Mount San Jacinto Natural History Association.\u00a0 <\/span>It was midday and I was walking around wearing my amber tinted Polaroid sun glasses.\u00a0 <\/span>Why do I mention my sun glasses?\u00a0 Because I was getting very excited about what I was seeing.\u00a0 <\/span>And for those of you that know about midday light, it is anything but exciting.\u00a0 <\/span>But the amber tint of the glasses and the effect of the polarization on the sky and foliage got me excited.\u00a0 <\/span>Added to that was how good it felt to be back in these mountains after an absence of 15 years.<\/p>\n

\n

I want to share what I feel\u2026. And that is often more intense than what my eyes see.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, I asked myself if it was OK to make photographs that reflected my mental state when it contradicted the physical reality of what my eyes saw.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you\u2019re not surprised that I opted for the mental state.<\/p>\n

\"Long<\/p>\n

In fine art photography circles there is a lot of talk about \u2018previsualization.\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>That is the ability to look at a scene and visualize in your mind\u2019s eye what the final print will look like. \u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s not easy and it doesn\u2019t always happen, at least not for me.\u00a0 <\/span>But sometimes I feel a very strong connection to what I\u2019m about to photograph and I know just what I want to make it say.\u00a0 <\/span>The Long Valley photograph above is an example.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you have an idea of what you want but the photography god just doesn\u2019t cooperate.\u00a0 <\/span>This past fall I was at the Point Reyes National Seashore, out on the peninsula that protects Drake\u2019s Bay from the rage of the tumultuous Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 <\/span>We were there for sunset.\u00a0 <\/span>But the horrible Paradise wildfire, more than 150 miles away, polluted the air with smoke.\u00a0 And the sunset was a disappointment.\u00a0 I photographed it anyway using techniques that would enhance my chances, but I wasn\u2019t holding my breath that I could turn it into the vision I hoped for.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the image is hiding and\u00a0you just need to not give up on it but keep on working with it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the first few goes at it in the digital darkroom supported my expectation of a lost cause.\u00a0 <\/span>It just wasn\u2019t working.\u00a0 <\/span>But something kept me going.\u00a0Sometimes the image is hiding and\u00a0you just need to not give up on it but keep on working with it. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>When I returned to it, I found the rush of excitement I was hoping for.\u00a0 All the curve balls that the horrible tragedy in Paradise and Mother Nature threw at us were somehow overcome.<\/p>\n

\"Point<\/p>\n

And then there are times when you discover what the image wants to say as you work with it.\u00a0You start with an idea in mind and work\u00a0diligently toward that end. \u00a0But no matter what you try it just doesn\u2019t work. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u2026 sometimes making a photograph is a collaborative effort between the photographer and the image.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That was the case when I first photographed Upper Antelope Canyon some 13 years ago.\u00a0 <\/span>The photograph of what is called the Corkscrew stood out from all the rest and I had an idea for it.\u00a0 <\/span>I pursued the idea when I got it into the digital darkroom. \u00a0I tried all sorts of things to realize why vision. \u00a0But the image refused to cooperate.\u00a0 It\u2019s like the\u00a0image had its own vision. \u00a0<\/span>Finally, after weeks of struggling I surrendered and basically said, “OK, I\u2019ll do it your way”\u00a0 What I discovered is\u00a0that so<\/span>metimes making a photograph is a collaborative effort between the photographer and the image. \u00a0<\/span>And when I realized and accepted this it finally worked.<\/p>\n

\"Upper<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I like to say in my classes and workshops, \u201cWhen you press the shutter the work has just begun.\u201d\u00a0 The skills we acquire and apply in the field, skills related to light, composition, sharpness and exposure, serve to create a solid starting point from which we can realize our vision.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s the emotion we can pour into our images that make them worth seeing and worth living with.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s what gives our images soul. And it\u2019s an honor to be able to share them with you.<\/p>\n

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

Finding the soul of a photograph is a journey that can take many paths.<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[471,8],"tags":[83,384,1345,76,294,1427,335,210],"class_list":["post-4219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-making-a-photograph","category-workshops","tag-digital-camera","tag-digital-darkroom","tag-digital-photography","tag-fine-art-photography","tag-landscape-photography","tag-mt-san-jacinto-state-park","tag-point-reyes","tag-upper-antelope-canyon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-163","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219","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=4219"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4223,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219\/revisions\/4223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}