Every now and then I get email from someone who asks "When do you know you have the right photo?". Well, the things that truly make a photograph a success for me are that the person I took the picture of is proud of it, and that they see themselves. Then, it is that they see the person I photographed the same way I saw them when I took the photograph. Sometimes this isn't always what the subject wants, it can be incredibly intimate, and has been described to me like they caught me reading their diary. This is a good thing in many ways, but like they say, the truth hurts.
I have always believed that the closer you are to the truth about someone in a photograph, the more you see how layered people are. By virtue of the intimacy of a photograph you automatically see that there is always more. I am so glad that I seem to have this talent as a photographer, because this is not what 'one' does, it is who 'one' is.
I like being able to enter into their lives in such an intimate way, images are so powerful so it is important that photographers ask themselves what impact their photographs will have on the persons they have photographed and on the people who will see them. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all acceptable in the right context but as a picture can be worth a thousand words they say, and it is then those words you use to describe someone that can create either a positive or negative impact, I am humbled by the trust those I photograph have in me.
During Sexy Backs and Creative Portraits, I have seen tears, and I have heard the laughter, its the emotions that I strive for at each shoot, and its those same emotions that have become my drug of choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment