Photo Exhibition Blog

Have you ever been gobsmacked at the awesomeness of a landscape? For some of us that might mean having to travel a long way from home...What about coming across some image which rests your soul, where all is still and majestic...

We are visually wired individuals and sometimes we receive dreams and visions which bypass the power of words. Pictures can frame themselves on the screen of our mind and call deep unto deep. Sometimes an image can trigger a cascade of thoughts and emotions because we associate certain feelings with a location we have visited in the past. Without knowing it, you find yourself transported through time and space into a new vista of learning and experience.

The scenery is what draws you in. You are compelled to explore peaks and vales. You follow a stream; you visit a cave; you smell the breeze on a hilltop. The topography of the landscape calls you to investigate its surface and features. You mentally estimate the slope between two spots. You imagine a path of travel.

As far as beauty is concerned, photography does a fine job at capturing colours and contrasts of lights and shadows. A magnificent sky is a finishing backdrop - inviting you to scan the horizon for clues as to what might lie beyond its border.

The weather ensures that even the most static image is always ever-changing. The sun does its trajectory from east to west. At night the moon phases in and out over a whole month. Rain will make everything greener. Snow will shroud the ground white. Icicles will shine in the sun. Trees will shed leaves and the wind will scatter them.

The appeal of artistic photography takes over where the master painters left off. We seek solace in an image that speaks peace and contentment to us. We want to hang it on our wall so that as we pass by, some of its character rubs on to us.

Curiously those images would be devoid of human civilisation. Like as if by our own admission - the world was better before we spoilt it by our sheer presence.

A beautiful scenery photography has the power to call us onto a spiritual plane. You would have to be very upset with God to deny the craftsmanship of the Creator because what you see and experience can only draw you to seek his face.

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Photo retouching was tedious and laborious in the darkroom. Today digital photo manipulation opens new vistas to the point where a photograph is no longer evidence in court.

Collage (from the French colle = glue) and montage (from the French monter = to mount) are genres beyond scrapbooking. Morphing is the new technique where the computer can extrapolate any number of transitions between two disparate images.

Image recognition has gone in leaps and bounds. For example facebook automatically detects a person's face on uploaded photos and invites you to tag your friends as you go.

Surveillance cameras in security systems can be programmed to detect a missing painting on the wall despite visitors walking past in the art gallery and light conditions changing from day to night hours.

Deep etching is widely used in catalogues to make an item for sale standout on a pure white background.

If you feel you have some surrealist inspiration and want to follow in the steps of Salvador Dali what can digital photo manipulation can offer you? The sky literally is the limit! Some artist take landscape shots with the express purpose of changing the lighting and the colour balance to bring a dramatic effect to an otherwise mundane shot.

Others blend together elements from different cultural landmarks to create a challenging scenery where the Statue of Liberty could be seen in the distance at the edge of a lake with snow peaked mountains in the distance and a Chinese man sitting in a sampan in the foreground.

The artistic effect of course is the dissonance between those elements which do not belong to each other. The pseudo reality of the photographic quality of the image is betrayed by the obvious mismatch of the elements present in the image. For someone who hasn't travelled, is un-educated or is a child the image would not trigger any concern.

Unfortunately this type of endeavour has not been limited to art. Some graphic artists with an axe to grind have defamed politicians by putting their public face on a rather crude and rude setting - the backlash of fame I suppose. Satirical cartoons have long been the weapon of choice of political descent - switching over to cleverly retouched photographs is still something most of us would feel uncomfortable with. Not so much because it can tactfully make the point but because suddenly we discover that we cannot even trust a photograph anymore.

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The jury is out as to whether photographic artists are born or taught. Whether you know how to use a camera is not the issue - it has more to do with the way you use your eyes.

Photographic art sounds a bit like a misnomer. How can some automated process allow room for creativity? The answer lies in the eyes of the beholder of course plus the fact that if you give the same camera to 5 people in front of the same subject you will get 5 different takes on the same topic - each giving away the slant or bias of that individual.

So there we have it. On one hand, with autofocus, light compensating automated cameras, all opportunities for errors have been removed (so we are told...) but on the other hand since I hold the camera and decide the exact timing of when I release the shutter I create a unique picture out of all the other possibilities.

If I use this opportunity for the purpose of being creative - then it becomes art.

Photo-journalism is the realm of reporters hunting sights which are deemed to be news-worthy.

Photo-art is the realm of artists who have trained their eye to capture whatever is uncanny, out of balance, beautiful or intriguing to make it artistic. That screens out all those left over shots that were bad takes.

So what would be the standard to say a picture is artistic? A simple answer would be: whether it conveys the passion of the artist or not.

If I cannot get you excited about what I am passionate about then my images have no artistic value. As a consequence not everything you see in a modern art museum is art - insofar as the taste of a given visitor is concerned.

The final question is: if I am a budding artist and I consider myself an artist and not a tourist, then how do I sharpen my artistic abilities?

It has to do with fanning your passion into flames. How passionate are you to capture that one shot that will make the afternoon well worth it? What subject are you hunting down to death to extract that moment out of time where things seem to hold up in thin air? How committed are you to your cause to expose a sight worth sharing? How many times did you walk around a subject to capture that unusual angle which reveals a new facet to an otherwise mundane topic?

Come on - make my day. Go out with your camera and don't come back unless you have something worthwhile.

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Nature is by far the best subject for artistic photography. Your creativity comes in catching an extra dimension to an otherwise ever evolving landscape.

Birdwatchers would spend an afternoon hiding in a tree to record the tweeting of a rare bird. Likewise nature photographers go out of their way to study their subject and bring us yet another unseen facet of our world.

It is an act of worship to acknowledge the majesty of Creation. How could someone deny the existence of God while in the open spaces is beyond belief. Maybe staying too long cuffed in a man made world is cutting us off from our destiny.

So how could you ever relate those emotions with a camera? Well, there are still two variables that you control: the precise moment you press the shutter release and the framing of the image in the viewfinder.

Just consider the implications. As the sun travels from dawn to dusk there are infinite shades and hues that will pass over your subject without mentioning the weather, season of the year - or even the same scene by moonlight!

Next is what you want your audience to see. You are standing there at the pinnacle of a hill. You could aim your camera to 360 degrees of panorama. In fact some people were so overwhelmed that they couldn't make up their mind. Panoramic cameras were invented to record on a long strip a continuous series of juxtaposed frames.

If you let loose in the open ten people with a camera should you expect them to return from their trip with something artistic? Obviously not. But if they enjoyed what they saw, got passionate about it and want to do it again, chances are you might have a budding artist there.

So how do you decide what is art and what is not? When you stroll through a modern art museum you might well ask the same question(!) In our case of nature photography art would be the personal contribution of the photographer to add an extra dimension to the subject. If you haven't been there yourself as a spectator, how can you tell what is the extra added artistic value in the image you're looking at? Simple: you would ask yourself: "Is this real?" "Does this place really exist?" "You didn't retouch the photo, did you?" if the answers the three questions are yes, yes and no, then it is art.

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Some people become self-conscious the moment you point a lens at them. Learn a few tips to overcome the situation.

A portrait as opposed to a happy snap is a set-out picture where the stated purpose is to remember someone for posterity. The background has been chosen, the subject has selected the appropriate clothes and the setting is an environment of your own choosing. Despite all this preparation the outcome can be derailed if the person has had bad experiences with photos in the past or keep saying negative things about themselves.

One good approach is to setup your camera on a tripod and use a remote shutter release. Once the focus and framing of the image has been done, you can engage the subject in conversation. Move to the side of the camera and do some small talk, taking as many shots as the subject relaxed face will allow. What should you be talking about? Anything but photography, of course!

One certain stress factor that could ruin all your efforts is the appearance behind the camera of some unexpected stranger having eye contact with your subject. The person being photographed could feel like a fool - being the subject of all this attention (the lights, the tripod, the attire, etc...) rule of thumb: lock the door or make sure you will not be disturbed.

Portraits need to be differentiated from instant photography by presenting their subject in their environment. Take the portrait of a hairdresser in his salon holding comb and scissors. Take the portrait of a homemaker in her kitchen presenting her home cooking with pride. Take the picture of a student in school uniform sitting at a desk, chewing the end of a pencil in front of an assignment.

A way to give depth to a portrait is to convert the image to black and white. Another way is to include symbolism into the image. Are there special items which people would instantly associate with the person? The composition of your frame is paramount. Think of a foreground before the person and a background behind the subject.

Outdoors can be great pieces of portraiture. Rolling hills in the tradition of master painters will certainly give a grandiose setting. Don't just rock up there impromptu. Go beforehand with a friend to investigate the best spot. What is the best time of the day in regard to lighting conditions? Should you use open flash to remove shadows from the face? (You don't want to turn your subject's nose into a sundial...)

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