Saturday, February 13, 2010
PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: File under the heading, My Eyes are Not a Camera. Spring, summer and fall the forest offers many beauties that defy photography. Sometimes walking or even driving beside or through a forest the passing trees flicker or wink, and where there is not too much underbrush, the eye is led deep, and the forest becomes spatial. Stand still and look at the same scene, and the lively, eye-catching texture is gone and part of the three-dimensionality with it. Close one eye to see more like a camera, and the depth disappears entirely; the forest becomes a wall; the elusive beauty has vanished. Photographing in the woods through most of the year I look hard to find things to lead the eye, a beam of light, a splash of flowers, a trail winding. In winter a layer of snow will reveal the contour of the land beneath and behind the forest and make a space there where the photo eye can wander.
During the next snowfall can I photograph a cathedral there?