How do we find the magic?
Imagination is the true magic carpet’ - Norman Vincent Peale (writer)
Our imagination is one of the best elements we can use for making our images our own! Something you may of not of ever thought about. We can’t be expected to produce top notch images all of the time, that’s not normal practice, we all make mistakes and pop certain days into practice learning days and the good ones are the images where all of the elements have come together really well, elements where we have thought about what we are taking images of and why and what story does it tell, rather than just photograph what’s in front of us.
Using our imagination to create a WOW image takes time to learn no matter what genre you photograph, wildlife capturing a story telling image takes a lot of patience I have known wildlife photographers to follow certain animals for days/ weeks to finally get an image that is an outstanding image where on lookers imaginations are invested in that image, looking at it in wonder, following animals going about their daily life, one sleeping polar bare on a glacier and other example, a family of bears asleep in a cliff side under the stars.
Landscape photographers waiting and wandering for days on their own over treacherous conditions to capture that time of day, light, weather condition, certain aspect, camera settings to create a wondrous vision of colour and story to allow viewers to look and wish they were right there at that moment! It’s a journey for sure where lots of mistakes are made and learned, regarding camera settings, lens choice, filters, and then the imagination, it’s a life’s work but when it happens WOW to even be in that place where you feel you are close to any being higher than ourselves at that moment and then to capture it in camera is where the magic is.
It’s our imaginations that allow us to tell stories rather than just snaps, taking images of what is in front of us rather than thinking about what we want to achieve.
Documentary Portraits have us in wonder about the person photographed especially if it’s photographed by a photographer with an imagination.
Still life too is a wonderful area to use imagination and one that is hard to grab viewers attention but when it’s done well like the old masters paintings, it had viewers in awe of the stunning highlights and shadows imagining where it would be, In what era? Putting a story together in their mind.
Macro, again equipment, technique, practice but also an imagination to have us in awe of that other world that most humans just do not ever see with our own eyes.
And the likes of myself, I love composite images it allows me to take my subject into another world, time, place, that’s timeless and stands the test of time.
So many artistes capture our imagination but it’s the imagination of the author that has us thinking in the first place, with the other elements of knowing their tools, practicing techniques, having gratitude for teams that help us achieve our own ideas, to make all of these factors come together we need to use our imagination to capture people’s interest.
Lack of photographer input is something lots of us struggle with and something to master over time, but it will come for all of us whom practice and really want to move forward, it’s only then we show our true self in our ideas from our own imaginations.
Salli G FNPS.
