I think that is what photographs are. They have, for me, never been about reality. But rather, an internal world.
To freeze reality, is to make it unreal. It is to take fluid time passing moments, and pause them, because for many of us, a particular moment when the lighting and subject matter come together, it is as though they have been conspiring, have been heading toward this one single definitive moment.
I have always thought that photography is the process of interpretation. I create images that mean something to me, but I have no control whatsoever on how others will view my work, and neither should I expect to. Because the simple fact that everyone will get something different out of what I create, just proves my point that photographs are interpretive, and therefore subjective.
With that in mind, when we put our work out there, we have to accept that it becomes public property. We no longer have any control over it. If you find an original composition or landscape, others may wish to emulate it. And to tell others what the work is about, is in my view rather pointless. That choice is in the viewer’s hands.
That is when I came to realise that photography is interpretive. What I feel of my work, and what I think of it is just my own interpretation. What others see and feel, is entirely up to them.
Photography is not reality, and for me, it is not about capturing exactly what was there. This is one of the reasons why I love film. With different film stocks you get different looks to the work. Either it is a colour difference, or a contrast difference or perhaps both. I use Fuji Velvia for most of my landscape work. Fuji Velvia does not record accurate colour. More or less, each time I get the films back, it is like I am staring at images made in a parallel universe to the one I was photographing. I also love film grain because it ensures that the images aren’t hopefully considered to be ‘real’ or ‘verbatim’. Film has a tendency to roll off the highlights so they don’t hit a sudden wall. And lastly, I like to use film because I understand there will be a big disconnect between what I am seeing and what I am recording.
One other disconnect that I like, is that I have no preview screen, I have no way to preview how the images will look, except to build up an internal view in my mind’s eye. I do that by metering the scene with a spot meter. I am able to figure out where each tone in the scene sits in relation to each other. This allows me to connect to an inner-world. A sort of dream state where the image resides.
Photography is purely interpretive, and because each person sees something different in my work, I have come to the conclusion that making photographs is a personal thing. I am doing it for myself.
I realised a long time ago, that it’s important for me to explore my inner world, because that is where I dream, and I like to think that all of my finished images are really a representation of those inner dreams.