What’s in An Image?

Sometimes more than you think!

In the case of most nature and landscape photography, your subject is presented to you by Mother Nature. As the photographer, you need to be blessed with good fortune and timing. All the technical aspects of taking the picture certainly apply and play a large part in the end quality of the image, but being present at the right time is critical.

Creative photography, as I have known it, demands much more from the photographer. Not only do all of the technical aspects of taking the picture still apply, but in many circumstances, even more so.

First and foremost though, you are creating the subject. Is the image going to tell a story? Or is there a story behind the image? What is the motivation for creating this subject? Is the initial concept being conveyed in what you are creating?

Sometimes there is much more to the image than you think. An image concept may evolve during the creative process. An initially static photographic idea can interestingly start to tell a story or become the story.

The making of “The Night Stand” started with a basic still image consisting of a flower on a night stand. Just the flower wasn’t enough. The project substantially evolved to the point where it became the source motivation for a short film script of the same name and a book manuscript also of the same name. The multi-year evolutionary process in developing The Night Stand project will be the topic of another article at a later date, but the answer to “What’s in an image?” is, “Much more than you think!”