September 01, 2011
February 11, 2010
January 04, 2010
A Photographer's Magic
I believe in the photographer's magic — the ability to stir the soul with light and shape and colour.
To create grand visual moments out of small and simple things, and to infuse big and complicated subjects with unpretentious elegance. He respects classic disciplines, while at the same time insists on being fast, modern and wild.
Can one disagree with such elegance about a photographer’s magic? A camera is a relatively simple contraption – a lens, a mirror and a method of capture, be it film or a digital sensor and photography, in general, seems fairly simple – just point and shoot – so-to-speak.
But I challenge that idea! I subscribe to the philosophy that looks are deceiving. Just as someone who types isn’t always a writer, someone who presses the shutter button isn’t always a photographer.
The philosophy I subscribe
to notes this… The moment matters, big or small, unique or mundane, it always
matters. It’s the combination of camera equipment and imagination that surrenders
that moment to the eternities.
Surely, I am no Ansel Adams, or even a Jinky, Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai, or David Jay, nor do I pertain to be. But I’m developing this craft and this I know – it’s a lot easier to shoot what the camera says is “right” than what the imagination, that is the photographer’s magic, says is possible.
Alicia Johnson
Fresh, Modern Photography
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