Cloud Melody

Why do I photograph? For me the answer to this question evolved over the years. When I first started photography almost twenty years ago, it was simple. At that time, I would travel to all these scenic places and capture the landscapes so that it would look the prettiest. More often than not that would mean following the compositional formula that I learnt from popular photography books and magazines. When I were successful in my mission, I would produce a photograph that would resemble the one that I saw in one of the magazines. But, it would be a pretty photograph without any of my personal statement. I would act as a composition machine to capture the landscape with my camera and produce on the monitor or print.

But, something inside me kept saying that I need to push my envelope. I started  looking at the works of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Wynn Bullock and Paul Caponigro. I started reading about their works and  of the artistic inspiration that motivated them. I read about Minor White and his advice to other photographers: “When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don’t leave until you have captured its essence“. Finally, a photography workshop with the internationally acclaimed photographer and print maker Charles Cramer finally transformed me and pushed me into the fine art photography world.

These masters of photography taught me that photography is not about “decorative fragments of landscapes”,  but it is a medium of transferring the life experience of the artist to the audience.

I present the top photograph, “Cloud Melody ” as a case in point. Judy Windt from Menlo Park wrote to me about it – “I’m the one who just bought your photograph “Cloud Melody”. All summer and fall I miss the rain and the dark moist sky and your photo will let me have that feeling when I feel dry. I wrote about it to a friend:

…a vast undulating field that is gold somehow with either yellowed grass or yellow flowers, the light coming from the earth, and the sky above heavy and dense with blue-gray clouds that are about to be rain, the darkness above, the light below, the heaviness and the light all reversed, the weight of clouds giving me weight and ground, why I love rain and clouds, the weight of it bringing me quietly, powerfully, massively down.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Thanks for reading! Please leave your comments.