The artist and the camera.

Welcome to Potlick's Blog.  Today I want to talk a little about my use of photography as an artist.  The picture you see below is the title image for a group of photographs of Japanese gardens.

    In the mid-eighties, I lived in Japan where I studied traditional Japanese painting.  While there, I carried my camera everywhere and tried to capture fleeting impressions of the world in which I found myself.
    You will see that the image here is actually a reflection.  So much of what I see as an artist is just a glimpse and the camera gives me a way of preserving that glimpse.  The floating lily pads and the reflection of the temple roofs just seemed in perfect harmony with the Japanese sensibility.
    Most often, people point the camera directly at the thing they want to photograph, but shooting from a different angle or using a reflection as I have here can produce an air of mystery and a heightened sense of artistry.

 
     Here is another example of capturing a fleeting moment that has both beauty and mystery.  The strange tepee-like shadow on the building makes us wonder what we are looking at.  In this case, the picture is not so much about the house as it is about the unusual, the strange, the unfamiliar.  It makes us stop and think and, hopefully, appreciate the wonders of our visual world.
    When you go out to take pictures, try to see the image in your viewfinder in a more abstract way.  That is, look for the larger abstract shapes be they colors, shadows or objects.  Seeing the larger, simpler image will help you to compose better photographs and help to better capture the essence of your subject.
    Please offer your comments and suggestions and stay tuned for more talks on art.  Patrick, AKA Potlick