Why I Photograph

Now that I have shared a few of my photographs and the stories behind them, I would like to share a little about me. Perhaps this is a bit out of order and I should have started off with this, however, I felt that I would rather introduce you to my photographs first.  I use a camera as a form of artistic expression, the ability to use images to communicate a message. Sometimes, that message is the raw beauty that is around us, beauty that has not been touched by the hands of humans; in other photographs it may be drawing attention to the peacefulness of nature, or of the a surfer contemplating where to enter the water on an early spring morning. Certainly, the surfer could be thinking of many things, the cold water, what they must do after surfing, or what they are hoping to clear their mind of when they enter the water. That is part of the beauty of a photograph, or of art more generally. You can participate in it, that is, you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Another example would be a favorite song, that speaks words in the lyrics that allow the listener to apply those words to a specific situation they have been in or shared feeling. A photograph can place you alongside someone and share in what they were feeling on a large scale. Some of the excitement in creating photographs is the ability to create some mystery, some unknown in the photograph that allows the viewer to participate in the scene, to become part of the photograph. In some of my work, my goal is to place the viewer in my spot where I was when I made the photograph; with others, I choose to place the viewer with the subject allowing one to wonder the thoughts and feelings, or maybe making the thoughts and feelings obvious but leaving something else out, allowing the viewer to fill in that last bit for themselves. There are many things in our lives that have more of a meaning than just what is placed on the surface of them. It is up to us, individually, to decide what they mean to us.