Authentic Imagery

In my type of wandering photography, I have a general rule that I follow: Find the beauty in what already exists in the place. I look for scenes that are there, capturing them as they are presented to me. I see my job as the photographer as capturing the beauty without interference. My challenge is to frame the image so that you can see it too, without being distracted by whatever else may be going on around.

I wandered by this lovely display of flowers on Saturday in Hood River, Oregon. Tucked back behind a table along the sidewalk, the texture of this pot, the pop of color and the interesting contrast of the sea shells and succulent plants caught my eye. Much to my son's chagrin (Mom, can we go yet?),  I studied it for a while with my camera trying to find the best way to capture it. This early image is one of my favorites.

After playing with it for a while from different angles, I did something I normally don't do... I actually moved the pot slightly. I straightened it up and moved it back so I could get the purple flower along the blue of the wood. You know what? In viewing my images, the ones where the pot had been straightened fall flat. They've lost their "found" charm. Their authenticity.

Maybe it is just me, but I find that this is one of my values in photography and in life: Authenticity. I have had strong negative reactions in the past to images that I find inauthentic. Particularly fashion photography, where reality is not the goal. For each artist, there is a different view and a different goal. Each artist brings different values to what they create. My reactions are not saying any type of photography is "bad," but they help me to zero in on what I value.

I like to find the beauty in reality, with all of its imperfections. The beauty that exists in the everyday, tucked along the sidewalks of the towns we live in. The beauty that exists in the hearts of each and every one of us imperfect beings. It doesn't matter if we don't live up to our culture's narrow definition of beauty, as prescribed by the mass media. It only matters that we are ourselves, and that we are sharing ourselves authentically.

Oh, look, I've found myself hidden amongst my photography again. Funny how that always takes me by surprise.

Yes son, we can move on now.

_________________________
What's going on around The Kat Eye View of the World...

• Linking in with the Creative Exchange today. Hello to all!
• The current Exploring with a Camera theme is The Color Wheel: Part 1. Check out the post and join in the exploration. You have one more day to link in!
• Digital Photography Basics registration opens soon. Subscribe to the Kat Eye News to be notified when registration opens.

It Takes Hard Work

Evening comes in to Riomaggiore, in the Cinque Terre of Italy. I love the colors and light in this photo. Not full dark, the "blue hour" as I've recently learned.

Since night photography has become a recent interest, I've had to practice. It's hard to get a really good night shot. You take so many, playing with exposures and ISO and lenses and compositions... but it pays off when you get that one beautiful one.

It's easy to dream about doing something, but the actual doing is always a lot harder. It takes hard work to improve, to get really good, to make a vision real. The beauty of it is, if it's something you LOVE to do, it doesn't feel like work.

Yesterday I spend the day learning things about XML and CSS code. A beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon in Italy and I was on the computer most of it. Why? Because I have a vision of what I want this blog to look like, where I want it to go, and I'm willing to put some work into getting there. I used to hate being on the computer when I wasn't working at my corporate job, because I associated the computer with things I didn't really have a passion for. Computer = work = not fun. The truth of it is, the computer is just a tool for whatever the job is. And now that what I'm doing on the computer is aligned to my passion, it's totally different.

This is an amazing realization for me, that's been slowly creeping up. My time here in Italy so far has been spent exploring my creativity and dreaming of possibilities. Now it's time to continue the dream into reality. I look forward to sharing with you some of these things as I work on them, like the blog update, along with my view of the world through photography.

Thanks for participating in my journey! I love hearing from you in comments and emails and facebook posts. It's such a fun thing, to be able to share my passion with the world in this way.