Les McLean
Subscriber
In many of the posts in photomc's excellent "Vision" thread some spoke of the difficulty in finding the words to express their feelings, an understandable comment given that we are first and foremost photographers. This problem started me thinking about a different way to explore the question of "vision".
We all have our favourite subjects and make exposures of them for a variety of reasons, the light may be good or our mood may be just right, whatever. My questions are: how many of us "see" the final image at the time of exposure and how many "see" the final image only during the process of making the print in the darkroom? However, these questions are probably more about "how" rather than "why", but please bear with me. The next questions are: are we inspired by what we feel and see in our mind and heart at the time of exposure and imagine how we want the subject to look like in final print? do we wait and accept what the film paper and chemicals will produce for us without thinking too much about what we WANT to see on the paper?
I guess what I'm trying to get at is how much we all respond to what we choose to photograph when faced with having to produce an interpretation of our own "Vision" for others to enjoy, assess or even reject.
I thought that it may be an interesting challenge for us to show our "Vision" in it's final form and at the same time show each stage in the process of realising that vision. Finally, to write a short explanation of our reasons for making the image in the first place.
Here's my offering to start the ball rolling.
Roughting Linn 2004
This place is my personal fantasy haven that I visit whenever I can, and often go there to cut myself off from the world and sit and think over problems. Roughting Linn does not look like this in reality, it is a quite dark place being in a small gorge and surrounded by trees. In the 30 years that I have visited this place I've always seen it as a place of light and have tried to convey that in all the prints I've made of it.
Images from left to right
1) Scan of the 4 x 5 negative developed in Prescysol
2) Pilot print on Ilford Warmtone 3 filter (no burning or dodging)
3) Final print on Ilford Warmtone split grade printed using 0 and 5 filters
4) The print plan
We all have our favourite subjects and make exposures of them for a variety of reasons, the light may be good or our mood may be just right, whatever. My questions are: how many of us "see" the final image at the time of exposure and how many "see" the final image only during the process of making the print in the darkroom? However, these questions are probably more about "how" rather than "why", but please bear with me. The next questions are: are we inspired by what we feel and see in our mind and heart at the time of exposure and imagine how we want the subject to look like in final print? do we wait and accept what the film paper and chemicals will produce for us without thinking too much about what we WANT to see on the paper?
I guess what I'm trying to get at is how much we all respond to what we choose to photograph when faced with having to produce an interpretation of our own "Vision" for others to enjoy, assess or even reject.
I thought that it may be an interesting challenge for us to show our "Vision" in it's final form and at the same time show each stage in the process of realising that vision. Finally, to write a short explanation of our reasons for making the image in the first place.
Here's my offering to start the ball rolling.
Roughting Linn 2004
This place is my personal fantasy haven that I visit whenever I can, and often go there to cut myself off from the world and sit and think over problems. Roughting Linn does not look like this in reality, it is a quite dark place being in a small gorge and surrounded by trees. In the 30 years that I have visited this place I've always seen it as a place of light and have tried to convey that in all the prints I've made of it.
Images from left to right
1) Scan of the 4 x 5 negative developed in Prescysol
2) Pilot print on Ilford Warmtone 3 filter (no burning or dodging)
3) Final print on Ilford Warmtone split grade printed using 0 and 5 filters
4) The print plan