Wide Awake

Random musings about me

I’m drawn by what goes on in the head of the viewer after I’ve made the image. Those other viewpoints give me insights I can’t attain just looking for myself. The flip side is seeing the images of other photographers and how they interpret something, sometimes very differently then I do.

My favourite colour in photography is black. I wouldn’t paint my bedroom black, but to me it encapsulates mystery and the unknown. At some fundamental level I’m trying to understand or document or celebrate the unknown through photography. The black is the shadow, the negative that shapes and outlines the positive, so it is certainly for now my favourite non-colour colour.

My earlier work tends to be “descriptive”. Showing a scene much as it would look on a particular day in a certain light. I worked with the composition of the elements presented by nature to make a pleasing image. Although I still enjoy that sort of photography, over time I found myself “tricking” my camera into showing an alternate view, or using the effects available through the computer to manipulate elements of the image to bring out what I wanted to focus on, and subdue what I didn’t.

A lot of the work I am most happy with happens at the ‘macro’ level. Tiny blossoms, insects, interesting bits of driftwood. I like to get right down into the middle of it with my camera, then discover a world you don’t see looking out your window. Using black and white and selective focus I may try to concentrate on form and line, or I may explore the rich colour in a geranium bud.