Photography For Your Soul

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In the beginning, I was told I needed to find my voice. I heard the words as my father exited the darkroom. I looked at the print in the bath and I had no clue what he meant, I could hear my voice, what was I supposed to find.  

When I went to be that night, I found a book on writing a novel. I was clueless other than I knew he wanted me to read the book. I had no idea what writing had to do with photography. I read the book and found out there are hundreds of authors who write mystery novels. Each author has his unique way of telling a story. The great ones have a unique style of writing that captures your attention till the end of the book leaving you wanting more.

The next book I found was on history that talked about art. I am not sure where it came from, maybe the University of Montana. My dad graduated and taught there too. German, Russian, History were the subject he taught. I began to understand what he meant by finding my voice.

I tried to see things differently, light (which I really didn’t know much about it) he said something about thirds. He took a print, a magic marker, and drew a tic-tac-toe grid on it. He took me into the dark room and put a piece of paper on the enlarger. He began moving 5×7 sized paper around, where ever he put the paper, changed what you saw. Then he moved it just so slightly to show if it had been framed smaller or maybe even bigger, it created a different story. The lesson was to remember what I saw and use it when I composed a picture.

Then one day he confused the heck out of me by telling me that I should have centered the subject and I had too much negative space. What, this I a great shot. We went back to the darkroom with the negative and again he showed me the differences between a good shot and a great shot.

I continued to learn about the techniques of composition, and more about light. I showed him a picture of a P-51 Mustang flying low to the ground in a tight turn. Perfect focus at the front of the plane, the propeller stopped without a blur. The background had some detail to it. I was proud of the shiny silver airplane. He said nice snapshot. It was like a slap to the face to me. Where is the story he asked?

I stood dumb founded for a moment. He told me to grab a soda and to meet him outside. We sat and looked at a hundred redwing starlings sitting on the power lines near the back of our yard.  He said I could take a picture of all of them just sitting there and it might be interesting, but what about if they took of en-mass  what would it tell you if you framed them with the power lines. I t would create a story. I would cause you to think. When you start taking photos that tell a story you then begin to create. When you create then you have found you voice.

I have found over the years, I take pictures, and I create pictures. I have some nice photos of the mountains and I have a few that evoke a story. I have begun to remember that there needs to be a purpose to pressing the shutter release, it needs to be my voice telling the story. The story created needed to evoke emotion, mystery, romance, excitement.

Just as I learn when I was young to find my voice I have found that it has matured over the years, it’s not the squeaky pubescent voice I had 35 years ago, it a voice the is deep, with some baritone it. It brings out vivid colors of a story sending you mind wandering, wondering, and wanting more.  It is what our heart and eyes see.

The story begins as we lift the camera up bringing the viewfinder to an eye. We wait as the ambient light shifts just a bit, waiting for that golden moment, the glint of and beautiful woman’s eye as the light caresses her face and we press the release and hear the wonderful sound of the start of a story being written. Hundreds of words are being written at once like and author feverishly speaking into a tape recorder. The sound stops, a thousand words have been written in less than a second. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. How many words can your voice create in a great picture?

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