{"id":494,"date":"2009-08-10T06:12:02","date_gmt":"2009-08-10T14:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=494"},"modified":"2019-11-18T20:10:26","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T04:10:26","slug":"reflections_on_cliche_photographs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/10\/reflections_on_cliche_photographs\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Cliche Photographs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was surprised again last week to learn that one of my photographs received another award at the Orange County Fair<\/a>.\u00a0 Virgin River and the Watchman<\/a> received a Purchase Award; that is, the fair purchased the photograph for its permanent collection.\u00a0 Actually, I was more than surprised.<\/p>\n

This is a shot that literally thousands and possibly tens of thousands of people take every year.\u00a0 If you’ve been to Zion you are probably aware that photographers line up on the bridge over the Virgin River nearly every day at sunset to photograph the setting sun on the Watchman, the magnificent face that towers over the south entrance to the park.\u00a0 It’s one of those places that has become an “Excuse me, may\u00a0 I squeeze in here?” photography site.\u00a0 From one end of the bridge to the other, photographers are set up with their tripods legs almost overlapping.<\/p>\n

Many would call it a cliche shot.\u00a0 I know, I did for many years.\u00a0 I avoided this particular shot precisely because it was so popular.\u00a0 There’s a picture in the Zion administration office (the old visitor center) of the bridge lined with photographers and a comment questioning their creativity.\u00a0 The photograph and comment were no doubt made by a ranger.<\/p>\n

So\u00a0is it possible to get a great photograph from the cliche locations?\u00a0 Apparently the Visual Arts folks at the Orange County Fair thought so.\u00a0 I think so too.\u00a0 Because, it’s not the location that makes the art but the interpretation.\u00a0\u00a0 For me, art is interpretation and communication.\u00a0 A work of art is the artist’s attempt to communicate his or her unique perspective of reality, of the world, and his or her reaction to it.\u00a0 Art is at its best when an artist has something new and fresh to say that’s never been said before or when an artist shows us something we’ve not seen before about something that is very common.\u00a0 On this latter point I think of Edward Weston’s photographs of bell peppers, or especially his photograph of a bed pan.<\/p>\n

I thought I had something rather unique to say in Virgin River and the Watchman.\u00a0 It of course was not the subject; there must have been 15 to 20 of us on the bridge that evening.\u00a0 It was the interpretation given to that photograph\u00a0in the post processing, the digital darkroom if you will, that made it unique.\u00a0 What I was able to achieve was an intense and almost passionate\u00a0look that was very\u00a0much like a painting.<\/p>\n

But when deciding which photographs to submit to the fair, I didn’t select this one at first because of the fact that the subject was cliche.\u00a0 I asked myself how many photographers submit this same image each year.\u00a0 But obviously I ultimately selected this one and the outcome was very satisfying – a 2nd place award and now the purchase award.\u00a0 I’m happy\u00a0about the money of course but what excites me the most is to have a photograph of mine join those of the other recognized visual artists.<\/p>\n

And I’m happy\u00a0that a unique interpretation of a common subject apparently does in fact communicate something new and fresh.<\/p>\n

Virgin River and the Watchman<\/a><\/p>\n

To see more of my work go to http:\/\/RalphNordstromPhotography.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also, join me on Facebook at http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Ralph-Nordstrom-Photography\/112254382772<\/a><\/p>\n

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

I was surprised again last week to learn that one of my photographs received another award at the Orange County Fair.\u00a0 Virgin River and the Watchman received a Purchase Award; that is, the fair purchased the photograph for its permanent collection.\u00a0 Actually, I was more than surprised. This is a shot that literally thousands and … Continue reading “Reflections on Cliche Photographs”<\/span><\/a><\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-7Y","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","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=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4582,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/4582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}