PhotoTao Card #12

Card #12

Providing for the Soul

The senses are of no use to an unhappy

person.  Care for your soul and let your

senses enjoy what you feel.

- Exercise -

Great writers become great, in part, by reading

great writing.  Great photographers surround 

themselves with great photographs.  Go to a 

museum's photographic galleries.  Bring a

notebook and jot down impressions, feelings

and reactions.  Collect books of your favorite

photographers and analyze what in their work 

appeals to you  All these impressions will

sift into your unconscious and impact the

images you make.

   I spend a great deal of time looking at the great masters of the photographic medium.  It was my study of Paul Strands work in the Outer Hebrides that led me there in 2005.  It was his approach to portraiture that greatly influenced my series, First Person Rural: a portrait of a Maine town.  But a word of caution is advisable here. Bernice Abbot (another wonderful photographer) once said:

"There are many teachers who could ruin

you.  Before you know it you could

be a pale copy of this teacher or that

teacher.  You have to evolve on your own."

   So, study the masters, chew on them, digest what they have to offer then spit them out!  You have to find your own way and you will. I've always told my students that within each person is a style, an approach that is uniquely theirs.  They just need to let it come out.