I'm sure many of you are asking what that's even supposed to mean –how can we increase the expressive qualities of a photo?In essence, what I'm talking about is the idea of actually recognizing what makes a photo into a work of art and why you might prefer one photo over another.
Take a look on my website at a photo I did called Harvest in Dorset. What is it that you can see in that picture? Is it just a bunch of bales of wheat or is there more to it? Look beyond the initial bale and see where the path leads – to a small town. Spread along the entire road to the town, you can see the bales there and they are arranged almost like mile markers – showing you the way into town.
Moreover, we can see the mountains in the background on one side and trees on the other side. Does that mean something to you? For each of us of course, it means something else. One person may indeed see nothing more bales of wheat. Others may see it as an allegory for the story on Hansel and Gretel, leaving a trail of wheat bales instead of a trail of bread crumbs.
Still others could see the mountains and the tree line and create a story all their own. It would actually allow them to see the small town, perhaps offering up the wheat bales as a sacrifice to a god who comes down from the mountainside to collect them and by the time he reaches the town, he is sated so that he doesn't need to exact a toll from the town itself.
Or perhaps the tree line in the background is where the farmers have gone for rest while they leave the bales of wheat to dry out in the sun, all the better to make them ready for processing.
The idea here is quite simply that I am leaving you with the option of seeing a story in your photo. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. When you purchase a photo from me, you are purchasing more than just a picture. You are purchasing a story. The way that the story is crafted is partly by me, by my arranging of the photo so that it speaks to you and has depth to it and partially by you, so that you can read into it almost anything you want. I invite you to join me on the quest for meaning in my photos and to create your own adventures as well.
