Garry Black Photography

SEEING WITH YOUR CAMERA

The purpose and significance of engaging in any artistic medium, including photography, is to express oneself. Sometimes the photographer seeks only to record, or document, what they see. But, the real challenge and the real satisfaction of photography is endeavouring to express and communicate visually what you feel about what you see.

The reason that you are making photographs is for your own sheer pleasure; you have no reason to satisfy anyone's tastes, except your own. Remember that the basic principles of composition and technique are just that, principals - NOT RULES. You should be free to use techniques and composition to meet the needs of each picture. But, remember that they are merely aids, the tools that the photographer uses to express their feelings or to get their idea across. It's the idea or feeling behind the picture, the thing the picture is all about, which is important, not the tools used in making it.

Good photography begins with careful observation, and careful observation takes practice. It's a skill you must work at in order to develop. However the opportunity to practice is available to you every moment that you're awake.

A photographer, unlike a painter, does not begin with an empty canvas. You will always have some existing physical reality in front of your lens. That object, or objects, exists in the real world in a certain way, you can't change that. But you can use visual design or composition to change how the world will see it in your photographs.

Seeing the world from your own viewpoint means allowing for your own responses to appear on film. It means adapting camera technique to express whatever you feel. Your own thoughts and feelings must be the determining factors in how you use your camera.