Showing posts with label desert debris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label desert debris. Show all posts

Monday, June 24, 2019

Anatomy Of An Idea

This post is discussion about where and how an idea for a photograph is developed.

In my case I collect scraps of ideas, fragments of things I find around me, which I store in my mind.   Sometimes just thumbing through an art magazine or a trip through an art gallery gives me ideas of images I would like to create.  If I am out walking down a street I become immersed in all the people and things around me.  I find that I try to see things from the perspective of a child, suspending all preconceptions and seeing my subject for the first time.  I basically see subjects as lines, shapes and forms and how they interact with the light.  It is curiosity about a particular object that is in front of me and how would I present it in a group of photographs.


Recently a friend left me some desert debris that he had picked up from walks in the desert.  I had these pieces on a shelf gathering dust not really knowing what to do with them...the other day I grabbed some of the pieces, some extra props, camera and some window light and went to work photographing them.  I found my mind twisting and turning with images flashing before me as I photographed the pieces...within a period of several hours I had collected a good number of images on the camera’s SD card.  The next step was to go through the images keeping and discarding those that I didn’t feel worked.  The resulting images below are what I produced within that period of time using window light and a reflector.






Photography is really an art form that requires no more than seeing what is before you; in my case it is self-absorption with the subject before me.  I only stop shooting when I cannot see my subject any longer...I have exhausted all the possible angles and compositions.  This process applies to everything that comes before the camera and me.




I can be contacted at nymacc@gmail.com