Erna Burns for Into the Wild
Added 2024-08-16 22:37:12 +0000 UTCI get asked all the time what am I thinking, or what is it that I want to do with my photography, and to be honest I'm never really quite sure what somebody is asking of me when that comes up. I'm not really a conceptual photographer. I have for a long time considered myself a portrait photographer, and I'm of the belief that every portrait is telling some sort of story.
Its impossible not too right?
So then the question is what story am I telling. For me that is always informed by who is in front of me, where we are, and what our combined goals are. As I am typing this I am realizing...I am improvisational. I don't really have a plan. I have some rules in my head, and I'm working within those.
My goal to create a portrait that transmits a mood, a feeling of being in that place...often the feeling of smallness of the overcoming presence of nature. The sometimes peace, sometimes harmony, sometimes adversarial, or melancholy in that relationship with nature. When we see the images we can feel loss, longing etc. Its different for everybody and not my place to decide for you!
But I get to create that feeling, by being informed by the place. A mountain overwhelmingly large and beautiful, or the forest density, I choose my lenses, and settings to best tell the story of that place.
Some stories are epics tales of triumph, some are as simple as I went for a walk in the woods. The poems that make up our day to day are just as poignant as the novels about our lives we like to tell. We look back on small moments with the most nostalgic and warm feelings, so I don't shy away from trying to capture something small. I resist the urge for every image to feel like the climax of a book, but embrace it when those moments happen.
Then there is the person in front of me, what do they love, what are they motivate by. Some write poems with their movements, and some topple mountains, and most do both or a mix of the two. It is just my place to find the light, choose the settings, and capture what they convey.
