Cure for curse of a thinking photographer
It is stating the obvious, but worth stating all the same, that photography is a visual form of communication, which is why the vast majority of photographers seek an audience for their work. They have something to say and choose photography to express it. Yet it is surprising how many complete the essential first stage of producing a technically competent photograph but develop no desire to achieve anything more than that.
Their images are exposed correctly and in focus but go no further than the rut of taking a record shot. But time is the only constraint on a photographer's development, and once the technical aspects have become second-nature then the door to individual creativity beckons and a huge amount of pleasure can follow.
One of the curses of being a thinking photographer, as opposed to one content to take snapshots, is that your hunger to learn and develop can lead to wasted hours buried in books and magazines (and on the internet!). But occasionally you do reap a reward and discover insight from one of photography's masters that leaps off the page and sums it all up in one succinct sentence.
Because I adore creative rather than competitive photography, I have never been one for positioning photographers in a personal league table, but suffice to say that Arnold Newman was one of the best and most influential of all portrait photographers. I feel he crystallised the key to good creative photography when he said:
"It is not important what we photograph, but how we photograph. None of us has ever photographed anything that is original. The important thing is the way that we do it."
Late Autumn rain in the Yorkshire Dales had swelled the River Swale in its lower reaches, so I headed up-river to where the flow would ease first in the hope of being fortunate enough to be there at that marvellous time when the spate subsides but the river still carries a suspension of peat in its tumbling flow.
I struck lucky, the final rays of late afternoon sidelight at Wain Wath Force converted the waterfall's peat stain into a technicolour jewel and the reflection of an ultramarine sky on the surface of the river extended the palette further. A 200mm lens enabled me to abstract a small section of the main flow and a longer shutter speed tracked the movement of a spotlight down the fall.
With a generous splash of vibrance at the RAW conversion stage, this image has become one of my favourites because it is a joyous celebration of nature's paintbox. It also captures the sheer effervescence of a river in spate, plus it pays a respect to the alchemy of photography.
As Arnold Newman so rightly pointed out, the subject of this photograph is not original, but it is my interpretation of the River Swale on that late November day. And that, to me, is important.
*An hour spent absorbing the images at www.arnoldnewmanarchive.com will not be wasted.