I was born into a time where photography was fairly accessible to most of us quite readily. Much of my youth was spent traveling abroad to places and destinations where I was taught to capture light. Back in those days, you really had no idea of how these images would come back looking like. Oftentimes, you would have to do some really on the fly guess work on metering your light quickly before the moment was gone as I can recall many times where I simply missed the moment attempting to try to capture light and, in the process, missed an image simply because I didn’t get the settings right. The rewards of capturing that special moment just right were absolutely critical in those days! I can recall times developing film where I would see an image and be blown away by the magic of the moment and that I had caught it just right. These moments truly exemplified incredible landscape photography to me and then there were other times which I had developed multiple rolls only to find out I had contaminated the film and beautiful shots were ruined with light leaks! Then fast forward up to the present time and my workflow is much significantly changed. Yet the one thing that remains the same is that capturing the right light no matter your chosen workflow, remains absolutely critical in order for the finished vision to reveal itself.
Technology has easily bridged many gaps and in some ways has made the actual taking of the photo quite simple. During earlier times, it was an art itself to simply expose your photo properly, however, now the artistry comes in the form of capturing light over a given landscape in a way that evokes emotion and a connection to the light and the land. As we are ever evolving and changing the way that we perceive our surroundings, the digital darkroom has allowed us as creators and artisans to push the envelope as to what we had captured in the moment and transform that moment into our version and interpretation of the moment that we had experienced as a visual masterpiece. Which has largely made my work much more intense and very focused on getting exactly the light that I am looking for. In approaching the capture of light this way, it has created a much more technically challenging and difficult setting in order to capture shots the way I wish to see them.
Allowing your eyes to revel upon the majesty of the land and bringing many compound subjects into a scene that leads the eye, all while creating leading lines that draw you into the scene with multiple focals, it seems that much of what I do in the digital darkroom tends to break many of the rules in traditional forms of art expression. The complexity by which we navigate each focal plane, creating a story told through the blending of the lens can be something somewhat unbridled and spiritually moving.
I am continually renewed and invigorated by and through the creative process of interpreting a scene in nature as told by the story of my lens. Whether it be bringing multiple elements into a scene to create something dynamic and interesting or capturing something in a singular dimensional plane that captures purity and simplicity, that inherently brings me great joy with digital landscape photography and my own version of what it is to develop my work in a digital darkroom workflow.
I almost always love a moment for what it is, pure, simple and unaltered right before my eyes, perfect as nature intended. Yet, during other times, I find fulfillment in creating my own artistic version of that moment, something that allows me to sculpt and create from raw elements into something that sweeps the viewer away to a place where they are transformed and taken to another land that my artistic rendering has transported their imagination to. A place that is dreamlike and far reaching, a place where we are free to imagine as children with a sensation of anything being possible if even for a moment. In these moments I am free to be myself and create as I see fit to measure my own connection to a moment as viscerally real! I always make it a point to attempt to remain true to a moment as best as I am able. However, at times, I do remove manmade objects from my work. Such things as footprints, fences, vapor trails left by aircraft. These are all things that I regularly remove from my imagery if present. I love to employ other tactics in my artistic rendering of a scene as well, such as focal length blending, focus stacking and compositing. When done properly, these techniques are able to garner an appreciable difference to perspective on an image, where if not properly employed, would simply ruin a scene.
There are many times where I not only wish to capture epic light, but to bring a distant peak front and center into a scene so that you almost might reach out and touch it! Our dimensional perspective on our 3D lives are in my eyes very linear and flat. One of my greatest ambitions and pleasures within Fine Art Landscape Photography is to pull elements from my subject scene and bring them together creating a story that is well composed, dramatic and beautiful. Over the years I have moved well beyond the limitations of traditional photo taking and have since fully embraced the tools and constructive evolution brought forward by a digital workflow in post-production creating a unique visual signature all unto my own. A reminder that we are unique, individuals, creatives, visual poets of the depths and layers not yet uncovered. Ever interpreting the way, we feel as we move across a landscape within intervals not calculated by the confines of the simple mind. When you travel into a scene with me, you are looking into my mind just as much as you are looking at an amazing moment captured through my lens.
The visual representation within the realms of what makes a Fine Art Landscape Photograph truly lies within the interpretation of a scene which embodies the feeling within the spirit of that landscape. Does the resulting image draw you in? Does the final artwork tell a story for your eyes to feast upon? Do you feel compelled to go to that destination yourself to feel and experience only what there is in that moment your eyes can see before you now? These are but a few of the questions I ask myself while developing one of my artworks destined for my Galleries walls. The spirit within each artwork must be representative of that moment captured and reflect the values by which my mind remembers clearly and how it made me feel. Only in that manner am I able to create an artwork which might transport you as the viewer into a scene where you wish to experience for yourself.
The complexities surrounding the technical aspects of my creativity are all self-taught and have always been founded upon a philosophy within myself of developing an image as an individual. I do not adhere to any easily taken route for the sake of collection continuity. I embrace difference and image diversity. While there are hundreds of presets available and many quick workflows in which to create generic edits for the sake of continuity, I do not adhere to such tactics. Each image must be processed from scratch, each move closely calculated based off of my recollection of the moment just as if a palette was created for an original oil. With each stroke of my brush telling a story for the first time. The creation of an original work must be done from scratch every time. It is only in that manner that you will be unique and might begin to develop a workflow that will become your signature, as something generations after you someday will be recognized as such.
Categorizing and encapsulating true fine art is like putting a set of blinders over an artisan’s creativity and tying their hands behind their back, at the same time telling them to create. Fundamentally, this is what tradition has adopted and many purists presume its outcome to be that of purebred fine artistry, for which any out of the box thinking is not facilitated. Fine art created within the realm of confines is not fine art at all, it is what others have manifested to be their perception of what is polarized between right or wrong and in art, there is neither. By my own definition, creative artistry is not taught, only technique can be taught, and true fine art comes from the individual. True artistry is something that is a living well from within one’s self, a well that is to be drawn from creatively and uniquely unto that artist. My philosophy is that you will find your way, when there is no way and within those moments of brevity, you will find yourself.
As we progress and leap forward into places where no one has gone before, the confines of regimen fade away from my view. The only reality I know and show loyalty to is the moment of capture. From there, it is my eyes as an artist that create what it is that makes my heart feel free to share that thought provoking moment with my collectors. In these expressive and personal realms is where I truly do my best work. A place where interpretation is the art of creation and the root of all expression.