Articles

Quotations

13/04/2020
A selection of quotes by various people that I have found on the internet that all resonate in some way with my own views on photography.
 
Technical perfection
I think technical perfection is vastly over-rated. Not all photographs work when exposed, developed and printed as if Ansel Adams were the darkroom technician supervising their production. Photography would be boring if all photographs looked that way. Do I think photographers need to know technique and craftsmanship so that they can consciously choose what they’re doing and can control their output? YES. Do they have to swear a life-long allegiance to the f64 School? NO. Not everything in life is sharp, not everything is grainless, and not everything fits in the Zone IV-Zone VIII tonal range.
Anon

I want to be technical enough to pull it off, but careless enough to enjoy it.
Imperfection, is perfection.
Anton Corbijn

Sharpness
Between sharpness and a better photograph, sharpness loses everytime.
I love sharp digital images, but I firmly believe our ongoing obsession with it is causing us to overlook our connection to the image. Imperfection is beautiful. Sharpness doesn’t make a good image, it can make a good image better (if used tactfully). But focusing on just getting something sharp can make an image lifeless and boring. I love the emotion of motion blur, and grain in film, it gives us something organic that connects us to the images we see.
Anon

I don't strive for sharpness or crispness in photographs.
Instead, I try to reproduce how my mind's eye sees and to evoke an emotional response
in the viewer.
Anon

Modern imagery
I don’t think that what other people are currently doing in computer generated imagery and digitally reprocessed imagery and so forth particularly influences my work, so far at least. There will always be technological advances - every day there’s something new. However, as the world around me accelerates, my tendency is to slow down and look for “centre.” I do not see many good reasons for jumping aboard this particular bandwagon. I find the simpler the technology the more freedom I have to look within myself. Exquisite music still comes from very old instruments, which is not to denigrate sophisticated electronic sound. Old and new can live side by side in peaceful co-existence. One does not replace the other, the repertoire just expands. I suggest though, that if we strive for perfect, digitally processed images and prints, the further away we might get from our own fallibility and accident prone humanity. My life seems to have flowed and flowered on accidental fortune, so has my photography. Many of my stronger photographs are the result of my option not to pre-visualise. I believe that it’s important to allow the possibility of accident and not be too controlling.
Micheal Kenna

.
At a time when the world is saturated with easily produced and circulated colour pictures. Images today, are often moving, enormous, flashing, demanding, insistent and have become part of the wallpaper of everyday life. Is there an argument for continuing to work in silver-based monochrome beyond the patina and prestige of its heritage? It is the qualities of abstraction, stillness, and material presence that make analogue monochrome photography the medium I continue to work in.
Anon

Creative photography
How would you define Creative Photography? I would suggest an imaginative enhancement of a straight image to create something more dynamic, aesthetically appealing, thought provoking or artistic. The straight image is not what we see on the negative or the computer monitor, but what we see in the viewfinder. Very often the creative process starts with the adjustments to camera settings, composition, and viewpoint at the time of the exposure.
The thought process applied at the taking stage remains the most important creative input to our images.
Anon

A comfort zone is a wonderful place, but nothing ever grows there.

Don’t be repressed in your work, dare to experiment, consider any urge, if in a new direction all the better. 
Edward Weston

There is only two kinds of music, good and bad.
Duke Ellington

Never fear the shadows, they simply mean there is a light shinning somewhere nearby.
Winnie the Pooh.