Anonymous commented my posting The difficulty of being interesting, asking why I don't think there is a story in my photos and why then take photos at all.
It was a good observation, and I find it difficult to answer why I feel the way I do. But here are a couple of points as a starter.
The meaning (not story) of a photograph changes over time, and I have learned not to expect much of the original story (or meaning) to survive when time goes on.
For me, photographs open windows to reality, and reality is not a story. I feel that a story is a temporary and volatile artifact of the human mind.
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Yellow Truck
2 hours ago
3 comments:
That makes a lot of sense to me, and is a beautiful perspective.
I often find with my writing, particularly poetry, that the meaning of what i write evolves with every time I revisit and read it.
In a way, like photography, poetry captures the reality of a moment, or of an emotion, and the story/meaning of that poetry is different depending on the interpretation.
If I were to rephrase my question as: "When you decide to press the shutter release, why do you decide to press it at that moment? Why do you choose to include the things you have in the frame? Why do you choose to exclude other things?" I would love to know how you would respond.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and photographs on your blog!
Same "anonymous" poster.
Why ask why? The shutter is pressed at a particular moment in time because ... it is. :-) It just feels right. For some particular reason, all of the elements come together to make it interesting at that moment.
Paul - that was a simple and elegant explanation!
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