Never too good to be true…

“Photography too often confirms preconceptions and distances the reader from more nuanced realities. The people in the frame are often depicted as too foreign, too exotic, or simply too different to be easily understood. The reader is spared, the icons are repeated, and photojournalism begins to resemble the repetitive nature of a religious service, enacting and reenacting the ongoing drama of suffering and redemption while the reader is encouraged to remain in the pews.” ~Fred Ritchin

For the viewer, I can imagine the quote above as holding a great many truths. It was not long ago I, too, lived with this ignorance of the world.

Then I began my travels and my world changed, my worldview changed, and the photographs I had seen my whole life in National Geographic, the Smithsonian magazine, and all across the internet became real and burned in my mind as the images I made of these lands were burned into my camera’s sensor. No longer were these places “too exotic” or “too foreign.”

But it was a while before I was able to realize that my photos were doing the same thing to my viewers as other photographer’s images had done to me. And even worse, my images held a special sentimental meaning in my mind that I found difficult to translate to others as they sat there looking through my galleries.

So, call it a “New Year’s Resolution” or other silly-ness, but I have discovered my mission as a photographer this year:

•Photograph intentionally.
•To be able to make images as a photographer that conveys a sense of realism. My images should look real.
•If the viewer were to be standing beside me when the image was taken, they would say, “Yes, that is what was there.”
•To be able to give the viewer a sense of connection to the images I make – possibly if only to feel a connection as a human being to the subject.
•To make the viewer feel inspired to an emotion because of the photograph – whether by visiting the place I photograph, or inspired to act upon the situation in the image.

Just like the photograph above – an image I made this afternoon of the lake I know more intimately than almost anything else in the world – can take on a certain new persona when looked at through my camera lens. And once again, a simple photo of a simple place can look exotic… but never too good to be true.

Had you been there, you would have said, “Yes, that it what I saw.” Stay tuned,

-Noah D.