2012, Day 166 - Miles to go

I was reflecting on photography yesterday in the company of Brian Matiash.  One of the things that has always drawn me to photography is the opportunity to capture an experience in a image or a series of images.  He had just returned from a trip to California and a stop off at Yosemite and made mention of the familiarity of the scenes.  So many people travel there and take photographs that they end up sharing with the world it seems like we've all seen it before, but have we really?

The goal of photography is to try to communicate a place and you can trigger so much more than vision with an image.  You can create a mood, give a sense of scale, evoke another time, communicate the feeling of a season, the cold or heat, the sounds and smells if only your audience allows themselves a moment to become absorbed.  We all perceive things differently and maybe our perspectives are similar but we all have our own twists and emphases.  If your photography is for yourself then no one else can capture your feelings and it makes your work unique even if it is only to yourself.

Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 100/f2.8L IS
100mm, f8, 1/1000 sec @ 400 ISO