About The Artist

 There would be no possible way to summarize such a broad topic, and I certainly will not attempt a claim at doing such. Merely, I will offer some conjecture purely to stimulate.

Fundamentally, photography is part technical savvy and part artistic vision. These two seemingly discrete objectives somehow meld to form a captured image. For some, the tools and techniques are daunting. For others (like myself), the creative offers the broader canvas. 

For the sake of the context, I will refer to a “Photographer” as an “Artist.” I will also speak of artistic philosophy. An artist’s philosophy shapes objectives and ultimately evolves into the formative concepts that compel them to elicit a photograph.

Each image is truly artful within its uniqueness and right, but few may challenge the emotive mind and capture the essence of the moment. Some have developed their skill greatly, so that they yield many effective and sometimes rather powerful frames from each effort. These few I do admire, for they either have a natural propensity to produce greatness, or they have dedicated their lives to the study of light and the passion it holds within.

Recently, I met a fellow deeply submerged in the photographic culture here in Los Angeles, who is not a photographer himself. He is an “onlooker” that simply just dabbles, but is exposed regularly to some of the most respected minds in the photographic world. He epitomized the terms defining the either positive or negative interpretation of images. He simply said, “Do they speak to you?”

Is a “better” image one that “speaks” to more people’s psyche? Is it one that evokes pleasure, drama, controversy or all of these? Is simplicity or complexity more beautiful, symmetry or asymmetry? Certainly, there are images that speak to the masses more effectively. Some speak only to the artist. The answer is as it would be with all “Art” in that any of the concepts are acceptable.

This is indeed a controversial topic. I beleaguered a number of heated conversations in an attempt to debate this and other peripheral issues with few that have actually not made a distinction between the two. There simply seems to be a gray area with no defined boundaries. Personally, I avoid “image manipulation” as much as possible with “photography” in mind. I define image manipulation to be significant alteration of fundamental objects or elements within an image (if that is not ambiguous in and of itself).

As an example, many architectural photographers will capture multiple exposures, then overlay and splice them together. Is that image manipulation? Well, yes. Is it acceptable in the context of photography? I say “yes” again. Is taking an element and moving it to another location “image manipulation?” Yes, I say. There are myriads of scenarios which could be contrived, but we will have to just leave it to our reasonability to make the determination.

I believe the best philosophy to be that a photographic artist should strive to capture an image with elements composed as effectively as possible, in every regard possible. That is photography in its purest form, unadulterated and admirable.

Image creation is a wonderful and very necessary skill. Many contrived images could not ever be a photograph, because they could not exist or simply never may. Do they contain photographic elements? Sure. Is it “Photography?” Certainly not. Let’s just agree to the fuzzy distinction between the two. Enough said.