One of the challenges I’ve always confronted as a visual artist is the fact that the image I conceive in my mind rarely is matched by what I’ve been able to produce as an artifact. Some photographs I’ve made I have been inordinately proud of. The ones I’ve liked best are those that have emerged sans expectations. I’ve “seen something” and made the image, only to discover later, in the lab, what it was I saw. But by then, it’s changed, because memory plays fast and loose with reality, and the picture I ended up making was its own thing.
Disappointment usually followed when I preconceived something at the time the shutter snapped and later I just couldn’t get that perceived image out on paper.
I’ve been making my first forays in the digital realm and dipping my toe into Photoshop. There is so much control one has through this program that it’s potentially narcotic. One could become lost in the ability to change, alter, enhance, and distort endlessly.
Because I’ve done photography for as long as I have, I’m already putting the breaks on in terms of Out There exoticism. But I’m finding the ability to bring an image more into line with what I originally conceived (or what I am imagining at the moment of manipulation) to be…wonderful.
For instance:
The original capture was a vertical shot. I “saw” something in this otherwise ordinary stand of trees. Cropped close, horizontal now, and manipulated for color saturation and contrast, I have something approaching that initial perception. The ethereal rendering or what might be termed timelessness in the forest is a direct result of what I’ve been able to do in Photoshop.
This is very cool as far as I’m concerned. This could be much fun.