Have you ever hard someone say “You’re taking a photograph, but creating an image.”?

Whether you are consciously aware of it or not when you click that shutter button,  you aren’t just capturing something. You’re creating an image of what you are seeing. It’s a combination of your composition in the frame, the settings you have chosen on your camera, and in essence, the subject that you are shooting.

When we make the choice to shoot something, we are giving others an insight into how we see the world. We are providing the viewer with our own visual perspective of the world. Have you ever thought about what makes people like certain images and not others? It’s because the viewer is resonating with what you saw in that subject, in that moment. It’s not the capture, it’s your image that you’ve created.

I have quite often spoken about (in previous posts and on my about page) about chasing #asecondofyes. That instinctive gut feeling that pulls you toward something. There’s no thinking, there’s no overanalysis, you just do and be and create in that moment. There are millions of photographs on Instagram that are mere captures, but there are those special ones that are images created of what the photographer felt in that moment. Where you can feel that light on your skin just as they did, feel the adrenaline of being in an immense landscape, once again, just as they did taking the photograph.

“But when you travel, … it’s all about the emotion. The emotion of you as the photographer, or in the case of portraits, that of your subject.”

You can feel it when you see their images, your mind will almost (always) instinctively scream “Yes!” That’s because that image was capturing that same moment for the photographer. The heart of what they felt in that moment of creating the image is infectious to you as the viewer. I know it is not always possible to capture with your heart; it’s hard to do that when you are shooting products for a client for example. But when you travel, when you shoot a place, a person, an animal (for a photograph, not for game!), it’s all about the emotion. The emotion of you as the photographer, or in the case of portraits, that of your subject.

For example, I passed this particular tree all the time on a country road near where I live. Every time I passed it in the car, on the way somewhere else, I kept getting the same thought, “You NEED to photograph that tree!”Eventually, after a few weeks of passing this tree, again and again, I pulled over on my way back from another location shoot, got out of the car, walked to the fence and just started at this tree. I saw all its stories in a flash, children climbing it through the generations. I could feel all the affection and love held for this tree. So I set up as quickly as I could to capture it at that moment in time when I felt like I was completely immersed in its orbit.

I was so conscious of trying to capture the feeling I was experiencing looking at this tree and really wanted to try and capture to convey to others that this tree had beautiful stories to tell. I stood there for as long as I could until the light was rapidly fading. I didn’t want to leave this beautiful tree, it just felt so peaceful and wise! This tree now hangs as a print in the hallway of my home. And everyone who looks at it says it reminds them either of their childhood; be it growing up in the wilds of Zimbabwe or the family farm in the foothills of Hanging Rock; or that the tree just has an effect on them. They feel calm and relaxed when they stand there taking it in. They feel the essence of what I experienced that night standing at the edge of the field.

For me, creating this image has captured the memory I have of being in that moment with the tree. For others, the image has sparked their own memories, and that, for me, is what art is all about.

Art, for me, (whatever medium is yours) is about bringing you back to yourself. It’s about reminding you of the unbridled beauty of the simple interactions we have with the world. And our creative outputs, our work, our images serve as beautiful visual reminders for others what is important in their lives as well.

Much Love