Skip to main content

The Soul of Photography

       Recently, due to a major family crisis and several other issues that came rushing in on me all at once, I was pulled away from "my own" photography. I phrase it that way because as those in the business know, you can be contracted / paid to do photography; but it might not be the work that you will later gauge your progress as an artist with.
       In that time 'away' I was able to step back and take an honest look at my work. To see it more objectively than I had in the past. To realize that some things worked - and some things did not. Some ideas needed to be refined; to metamorphose to their next logical form. And others simply needed to be pruned away. Such realizations are not easy when we are so closely "married" to our creative vision.
       I think it is important for all who aspire to be photographers to reach this stage - perhaps many times. We need to step back every now and then and really, honestly look at what we are doing and ask ourselves "Am I really saying what I want to say with my images?"
       What I am talking about is not whether our images are technically correct. They should always be technically correct. I am talking about whether our images affect our viewers (or even us) in the way we really want them to. Someone can learn to play blues on a guitar, and do it technically perfect; note for note they nail the song. But a real blues musician puts "soul" into it. Gives it depth and resonance that transcend merely hitting all of the right notes in correct order. Does our photography have "soul" in it, or are we just hitting the notes and then seeing what we want to see because we are so closely connected to them? The answer might be - should be - different for each person. But the ability to step back and make hard decisions is something that we all need to do at some point. I am glad that I have had the chance.
       So.... Stay tuned for some new refinements and some notable changes at C. M. Franke Photography in the days ahead!

Comments

Post a Comment

All comments will be moderated. Comments containing profanity, abusive speech, or questionable content will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

Playing With Dramatic Light

I have this image that keeps recurring in my mind. It involves the cold blue feeling of a dark winter and the glowing orange of a firelight. So far it seems to keep eluding me, although I think this is largely because every attempt I have made to capture this "mood" has been done in a hurry, or in the rain, or some other situation that forced me to run through it rather than walk it out. This shot is one such version. I may need to go back with a slightly different lighting setup and try some more. Perhaps in a different location.
2 comments
Read more

It's Not The Light, Its What You Do With It.

Standard soft-light shot with umbrella Snoot light for that film-noir look T his past weekend I had the opportunity to shoot with a very talented East Coast makeup artist, and an amazing model (!)            S ince I knew that I would be working in a relatively small space, and did not want to set up lots of plugged in lights, I used a Vivitar 285-HV speed light and bounce umbrella. Once we got the images we were after, but before we wrapped the shot and struck the set, I dropped a snoot on the light, swiveled it around, and tried my version of a "noir / vintage album cover" look. These are just quick samples of both styles, pretty much as they look straight from the camera. The refined, polished, edited versions will be coming up later - but it is nice to see that even a small and often overlooked "old-school" flash unit can still create pretty impressive light!
1 comment
Read more

A Picture is Worth How Much? (Part II)

After a long two year absence from this blog, I feel the need to write a post on some recent rumblings which - by the time you read this, may be either old news, or a never ending story. In essence it is a follow up to my last post of February 2014, in that it follows the same line of thought, but adds a new variable to the equation. Firstly, I took two years away from photography due to family responsibilities. While I could write a whole run-on blog post about being a care-giver for an elderly parent, it falls quite far afield of my purpose here, so I'll just say that the time away from the camera has allowed me to see my work for what it is (or was) more clearly, and to redefine what it needs to become and where I want to go with it in the days ahead. Call it a "forced introspection," it leads me to the point I want to make now. In my previous post I ruminated on how the preponderance of photographic images has led to a 'devaluation' of photography. ...
Post a Comment
Read more