Photography and the Creative Process

My Online Photo Gallery has evolved and will mainly feature my black and white photographs. Hence, I have closed the Focus on Seraphim gallery at www.wmgphoto.com. My photographs of Seraphim will be featured on the new Focus on Seraphim Website. My latest post includes this photo, Petulant Peasant Girl, one of Seraphim’s supporting players at the Maryland Rennaisance Festival a few years ago. Focus on Seraphim now resides at www.seraphim.wmgphoto.com

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Light always plays a part to a greater or lesser degree in any photograph. Sometimes, as was the case the morning of June 30 when I captured the image in this post, light becomes a compositional element in the photograph.

But light can be a fickle subject. She is prone to fool your lightmeter, claiming for herself center stage, causing your camera to underexpose your main subject.

Light also can be elusive. While she is eager to show herself in all her glory, she will do so for but a moment. The photographer must act quickly to capture her on film before she slips away to hide in the full glare of the sun.

A photographer will be well served to learn the secrets of natural light.

In 1978 I started playing around with the old cameras I had found in a cabinet in my dorm room in college. A friend and I captured this image while walking around Fairfield, Iowa, with my old plastic Ansco Anscoflex twin lens reflex camera, the one with the large dish flash attachment that took real flash bulbs, a box of which I found in the local used junk shop. I really enjoyed that simple camera, but alas, they don’t manufacture film for it anymore - it took 620 roll film. This is how the image (two similar photographs, actually) appears in my picture album from that era.

I am reminded of the Russian-made Holga or the Japanese-made Diana, both of them plastic, 120 format cult cameras. I just saw a new version of the Diana for sale in Urban Outfitters. The Ansco Anscoflex was my answer to the Diana.

I am preparing several photographs for an upcoming exhibit in Frederick, Maryland. I have been inspired to go beyond the pictures themselves and create works of art that, while centered on the photographs, provide a context for the images as well.

Schism II (shown below) incorporates the photograph, Schism, but includes a handcrafted weathered oak crucifix as a base for the photo, and a wreath of vines (crown of thorns?) as a frame for the image, adding layers of meaning not available from the photograph standing alone.

Welcome to Nirvana (shown below) uses the photo of the same name as its basis, but the photo floats within the open space of a Japanese Torii gate, which I constructed using weathered oak, as its context. It is as if the traveler (the small figure in the lower right corner) has just passed through the Torii gate to come face to face with the object of his longing. Also, I used a subtly colorized version of Welcome to Nirvana to create this piece.

To see a clearer image of the underlying photographs, visit the Focus on Religion gallery at www.wmgphoto.com and click on the thumbnail images.

I am hopeful that my photographs strike an emotional chord thereby enabling the viewer, if just for a moment, to step out of his or her limited sense of self. I was reminded of this phenomenon this past weekend.

A friend and I have just returned from our annual pilgrimage to the Bach festival in Bethlehem, PA. Discussing the generally recognized sacred nature of Bach’s music and our own individual thoughts and experiences in listening to the live performances, the following idea arose: Read more