Blog #8, #9, #10

Blog #8 “My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.” ~Richard Avedon.

Sometimes photographs make the viewer wonder about the subject. Sometimes photographs make the viewer wonder about the photographer. Sometimes, the most important way to understand a photograph is to understand who is standing behind the camera, and the ideas that person has in their mind. Sometimes, that is the only way to truly understand the photograph completely. When you look at the photograph and see a glimmer of the person behind the camera in the eyes of the portrait subject, that is a beautiful thing.

Blog #9 “You don't take a photograph, you make it.” ~Ansel Adams

'Take' means to seize or capture. 'Make' means to bring into existence by shaping or changing material. By definition, by saying that one takes a picture, it seems forced and aggressive. On the contrary, making a photograph is more of an art form. It takes creative energy to make a photograph and taking a photograph makes photography seem like more of a passive action.

Blog #10 “All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.” ~John Berger

Paintings usually encapsulate the emotions of the painter. Photographs encapsulate the scene and all the subjects within that scene. Along those lines, photographs require the emotions of the subjects and those involved and not just the painters emotions.