Back in the swing of things and back on the road again. It's been awhile since I've traveled and as any longtime blog followers know, I'm usually on the road quite a bit during the winter months. It's hard to be home when we're not getting any snow and other areas are getting dumped, but no worries, I'll be traveling for the next few weeks.
I looked back into some of my older travel blog posts and it brought back a lot of memories from many different travels. This made me think, I like the photos because they remind me of good times but does that make them a good photograph? To me... sure it does, but without knowing the travels and not being the one behind the lens is it still a good photograph? People always say things like "try to step into someone else's shoes" or "look at it from a different perspective" but honestly whenever you view anything, whether it be a situation or an image, you're always going to look at it and compare or relate it to something in your life. This comparison or relation is the structure of your opinion on whatever you are viewing.
Take this situation for instance: two people view the same image of a dog. One person had some childhood issues with dogs, while the other had the same type of dog as a childhood pet. The first person is gonna have a negative view of the image while the second person is going to remember his/her childhood dog and have a positive view on the photo. This is a very basic example but you can see how previous experiences change a person's viewpoint.
With this in mind I look back at images I've taken and try to view them as a stranger would without any of my memories. It's impossible, every time I look at that photo it brings me back to the time I shot it and anything associated with it or that time of my life.
Recently I've been trying to find the line between sentimental value and real value in an image. Turns out it isn't much of a line at all, it's just a big gray area. Finding the balance is what I'm always striving for, but when do you know the balance? Well... when everyone including yourself loves the image. I'm not sure if it's possible but it's definitely a good thing to work towards.
That being said, here's my group of images for the week. I like them because I feel like I did my best at turning a whole lot of nothing into something presentable. I did everything I could to make miles and miles of not much into something interesting. The question is, is it interesting enough to post?
2 comments:
I like the first image for its subject, nature with basically a line drawn thru it. The third image I like the composition.
"The question is, is it interesting enough to post?"
The answer is no.
:)
You raise a great point about personal feelings towards photos. Any photo or work of art will have a different value placed on it based on the experiences of the viewer, this is what can make art so great and so frustrating at the same time. What does make a great photo? Well there are the basics of course such as proper exposure, rules of composition, white balance, etc., but even with this said rules are meant to be broken at times, but only if you are doing so with a purpose.
Your images are able to convey a real sense of solitude and being alone- the great unknown in some.
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