AN ADVENTURE IN PHOTOGRAPHY
1946. Minicam Photography, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 28-29.
These pictures of weeds in the snow are desired to express feeling more than anything else and if they convey feeling to you, I’ll be ever so pleased.
Taking them was a standard photographic problem. There was no sun and I was not interested in the snow textures, but in the lines that the weeds made. So, I doubled the normal exposure on the snow and over developed the negative. The photographs showing light on the water were a combination of simple imagination plus an interest in the moving highlights that the sun on the water makes. This was an experiment, not new probably, but new to me which was the exciting part of it. In looking into the ground glass I could see the shapes that the moving water made with the sun reflecting upon them. I was anxious to see what these shapes would be on the film. They were made at one second exposure. All photographs are contact prints from 9 x 12 cm. negatives made with 91/2? lens.
trying to discover and establish as being my life. I want to discover and establish them through photography. This is strictly my affair and does not explain these pictures by any means. Anyone else not having the desire to take them would realize that I must have felt this was purely personal. This reason, whether it be good or bad, is the only reason I can give for these photographs.
The photographs that excite me are photographs that say something in a new manner; not for the sake of being different, but ones that are different because the individual is different and the individual expresses himself. I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves.
I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting.
Taking them was a standard photographic problem. There was no sun and I was not interested in the snow textures, but in the lines that the weeds made. So, I doubled the normal exposure on the snow and over developed the negative. The photographs showing light on the water were a combination of simple imagination plus an interest in the moving highlights that the sun on the water makes. This was an experiment, not new probably, but new to me which was the exciting part of it. In looking into the ground glass I could see the shapes that the moving water made with the sun reflecting upon them. I was anxious to see what these shapes would be on the film. They were made at one second exposure. All photographs are contact prints from 9 x 12 cm. negatives made with 91/2? lens.
Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure. If man wishes to express himself photographically, he must understand, surely to a certain extent, his relationship to life. I am interested in relating the problems that affect me to some set of values that I amPhotography is an adventure just as life is an adventure.
trying to discover and establish as being my life. I want to discover and establish them through photography. This is strictly my affair and does not explain these pictures by any means. Anyone else not having the desire to take them would realize that I must have felt this was purely personal. This reason, whether it be good or bad, is the only reason I can give for these photographs.
The photographs that excite me are photographs that say something in a new manner; not for the sake of being different, but ones that are different because the individual is different and the individual expresses himself. I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves.
I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting.
By HARRY CALLAHAN
2008-01-01 20:37:08
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