[Leica] Sue Ryan's search for photographic intent.

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

I would welcome more information from photographers about their intent and 
feedback regarding how well they succeeded, suggestions for improving if 
they missed the mark, etc. I also realize some photos don't have a lot of 
intention behind them - people sometimes just record something interesting 
and share that. I so some of both.


I'm willing to share some photos I made with intent and risk being 
vulnerable to feedback that I failed in order to improve my photographic 
communication skills. Dr. Pomeroy, do you want to go first, or shall I? :D


Sue Ryan
- - - -


Sue,
Some photographers don't have much of an intent to create a memorable image 
when they take a picture. Just getting what the camera is pointed at is OK. 
Like several others on the LUG I served my photographic apprenticeship on a 
newspaper where the mantra was "A mediocre picture today beats a masterpiece 
tomorrow." We prided ourselves in being able to sell papers showing the 
winning Celtics' goal or Red Sox's run while the crowd filed out of the 
stadium. So I never really learned to create an image. I just viewed an 
attractive scene in the viewfinder and clicked the shutter. My wife, a 
locally renowned painter, calls me an adventitious photographer who is 
fortunate to have an adequate compositional sense and a quick trigger 
finger.?


She, on the other hand, plans every art work in her head before picking up a 
brush. She rarely uses models. It's all in there. She takes good pictures 
too but spends a considerable time on each one as she moves the camera right 
and left, up and down, forward and backward trying to frame exactly the 
right image. I keep telling her that the magic of digital photography is 
that you can take dozens of pictures and compose after the fact. As George 
Bernard Shaw said "A codfish lays 10,000 eggs to hatch but one." She doesn't 
buy it. It's not art.


I am fascinated by the articles in photographic magazines describing the 
mental processes and manipulations of master photographers to create a 
desired effect. But I suspect that many of the descriptions are a 
retroactive way of explaining good luck. I wish you success in your search 
for "photographic intent."


Larry Z