Framed

Introduction

I want to share the journey that began about 20 years ago on a trip home from Stanley, Idaho, marking the start of my photography story. After that trip, I decided to explore everything I could about the craft of great photographers, the elements of a great photograph, and see if I had what it took to become a creative photographer. What I do know is that I had an emotional experience with the photo I took when the HP Women's Challenge cyclist rode past us on the highway as we were heading home that day. Seeing the twenty or so women coming toward us on their bicycles, dressed in colorful clothing, inspired me to grab my wife's camera and run to the side of the highway to capture a shot of the crowd rushing past. After trying to get what I thought I wanted from the experience, I found myself in tears as I headed back to the car. It was that moment twenty years ago that I decided I wanted to understand what the tears were about. I set out to learn about the creative process and explore everything I could about creativity, framing, and the “voice” of a great photograph.

What Inspired the Journey

The tears I shed while capturing the women's bike race in the Idaho backcountry were not just tears of emotion, but also tears of transformation. They marked the beginning of a journey that would challenge me, inspire me, and ultimately lead me to a deeper understanding of the creative process. This journey was not just about capturing images but about unlocking the potential of my own creativity. It was this realization that fueled my determination to explore the creative journey ahead.

The Greats

The journey started with exploring the greats who came before me, and I soon discovered artists like Ansel Adams. He was the famous North American photographer known for his black and white images of the wild west. Then there was the Frenchman Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz, Freeman Patterson, writer and photographer Vivian Maier, the street photographer, and a very notable photographer named Sebastião Salgado, the acclaimed Brazilian documentary photographer who traveled the globe for his projects and books during his lifetime. 

The greats I discovered were invaluable in my progress to learning how to compose and frame images boldly and confidently. I quickly learned about the idea of “visual libraries” as well, and the greats were an excellent place to start. Patterson's book “The Art of Seeing the World Around You” was invaluable from the beginning in explaining the composition elements of a photograph. I loved the book and read it many times to internalize the information.

Patterson had me going in the right direction with the elements I needed to understand and use: texture, color, line, negative space, patterns, tone, rule of thirds, and perspectives. He laid the foundation for the creative work I have produced throughout my career up to this day. Much of the visual library was collected from the other photographers previously mentioned, and adding to the library, which was submitted to memory, was an ongoing part of my journey.

Creative Influences

I discovered other creative influences along the way, and the first one I encountered was a Russian writer named Nicholas Berdyaev, “Freedom and Slavery,” whom I found helpful in understanding the basic elements of the creative process. I remember asking people what they knew about it and what they could share, and I was usually met with a blank stare or someone trying to sound smart and offering nothing meaningful. But Berdyaev began understanding creativity through the knowledge of personality and the freedom of thought and emotion, highlighting the importance of the subjective process as it interacts with rational processes. As the title suggests, the contrast between the slave and the free man is something we must learn to navigate in postmodern culture.

Other influences included Julia Cameron, who wrote “The Artist's Way,” which introduced me to “Morning Papers” and the idea of unlocking the bicameral brain to improve function and find expression in the process. Morning papers are precisely as they sound: in the morning, you write and journal about whatever is on your mind for about an hour to help free up things that might be blocking expressive elements in your day. I might add, it is crucial to be brutally honest with yourself during this process!

I found one of the most helpful writers, Iain McGilchrist, whose book “The Master and His Emissary” is the best I've read next to the Bible, ever! Iain is a trained neurologist and psychiatrist, an Oxford Fellow, and a brilliant mind. He has helped me understand several things related to life in general, the creative process, and the cultural influences that often make us neurologically, intellectually, and emotionally handicapped. McGilchrist is brilliant in his historical perspective on culture creation and development, from pre-Roman civilization to the current postmodern world we live in today.

The writers I mentioned are probably the best that come to mind for now. They are the individuals from whom I learned a lot and who inspired me the most. They helped me build the foundation from which I operate in my life overall. A foundation of emotional, spiritual, and intellectual wisdom and understanding. It is from this foundation that I have been able to build a creative life that has led me to a place of freedom and joy.

Creative Elements

It’s time to start assembling the elements of a photograph, elements that initially came from Patterson’s book. These are the elements that make images resonate with the audience and work effectively. I'm talking about texture and color, line and negative space, shape and patterns, and tone—especially important in black and white images—and lastly, the rule of thirds. Patterson spent a lot of time understanding how these elements work for the photograph in his book, as previously mentioned.

Let's examine the building blocks of the visual design section of his book, where he lists five elements: light, shape, line, texture, and perspective. Learning to identify these elements gave me a solid starting point. It's similar to how I approach reading the Bible; I take what I read seriously and believe it to be the truth. That's how I treated Patterson's work. So, what's next for you? Take yourself to a scenic spot and apply the information you're given. I found it helpful to work on this with another photographer. Please discuss it with someone else and engage in meaningful conversations to understand what your voice is telling you about the view, the color of the light, the directions of the lines in the frame, and the perspective of the foreground and background. Exploring the beauty and joy of these experiences has been and continues to be a lot of fun for me.

Influences on the Way

In my quest to find my voice as a creative photographer, I quickly became involved with a camera club in Boise. From there, I started taking part in what were called First Thursdays, held in downtown Boise on the first Thursday of each month, just as the name suggests. I showed my work to the public during this period and sometimes received critical feedback. This process continued for several years, giving me opportunities to have my work critiqued by photographers much more skilled than I was. The shows also boosted my confidence and courage. However, I soon realized that if I stayed in the camera club, my work would start to mirror the club's style. The top shooters were influencing me, and I began to feel like I wasn’t truly finding my own voice.

During this period, I met a professor from a local college who taught me something important about people and society. Later, I connected this to McGilchrist's work, where he mentioned that the general public doesn't appreciate beauty. I remember taking his advice somewhat sadly, but it soon became clear why the First Thursday crowd often seemed detached from most of the art on display, except for the banal works hanging in one of the galleries. It didn’t take long to understand what he shared with me and how I needed to stop thinking that people appreciated beauty the way I do, because that isn't true at all. I am sure this influenced my growth as a creative, and I believe the most significant impact was that I wasn't supposed to seek validation from people I knew for my work. I had better people who eventually came into focus, offering valuable critiques of my work, which I greatly appreciated. They were, of course, invaluable to me in the long run. The goal to find my creative voice continued.

In 2020, I submitted work to a juried show called the International Photography Awards (IPA). It was the third year since I first entered my images. I remember submitting work for the next ten years and usually earning recognition. Some years were more appreciated than others, but I was glad to have achieved what I did through the process. I was starting to believe I was making progress with my work. I was finding my voice, and that was important to me. I recall that later, when I was photographing listings for the real estate market, I realized I had developed a distinct style of capturing interior spaces that listing agents highly appreciated. As a result, I became swamped, sometimes fitting in up to four listings a day.

Capture Sequence

I am going to explore the moments I have come to know over the years, reflecting on the many “framing events” in my life. One of the things I share with budding photographers is the need for a complete understanding of how their camera works. How do aperture, shutter speed, and ISO work together on the camera they own? It’s essential to establish a thorough understanding of these three elements so that when capturing an image, they can focus on framing rather than thinking about camera details. This allows them to experience a moment of creativity as they observe the elements discussed earlier, without worrying about the correct ISO or shutter speed at the time of capture. These functions must become unconscious for the photographer.

It is at this moment, when I see the image or visualization before the actual capture, that I form the picture in my mind. This is when the framed photo is already envisioned, and the process of bringing the camera up to my eye and pressing the shutter becomes somewhat automatic. The actual creative process happens at this moment without deliberate thought or much rationalization. For me, this is the moment where my “voice” is “heard” in the final frame of the image I see on my camera back. This is the moment of joy I experience when I capture the image pre-visualized. This is the existential moment when I have “Framed” a scene of beauty, in color or Black and White, in my voice!

Patterson, Freeman, (1999), Photography and the Art of Seeing, Key Porter Publishing

Patterson, Freeman, (2004), Photographing the World Around You, Key Porter Publishing

McGilchrist, Iain, (2009), The Master and His Emmisarry, Yale Publishing

Cameron, Julia, (1992), The Artist Way, Jeremy P. Tarcher Publishing