Unplugged… ish

Obviously I’m not totally unplugged, since I’m taking a quiet moment to blog from the beach. But I’ll keep it short, and feature the photos more than the words.

For whatever reason, most of the photos I’m taking at the beach I’m manipulating heavily in post process to fit various aesthetics. I am working towards something serious, and something I hope is visually appealing and intriguing, but I am also playing. I am processing for feeling rather than accuracy, giving myself some artistic license.

There are competing sides of my photographic personality–that that seeks to document with accuracy and truth, and that that seeks to creatively express. Maybe it’s because my mom is an artist who works in a variety of media and my father is a photographer, but I find that my photographs tend towards the manipulated more often than not.

In my view, there is no whole photographic truth in a photograph, and I’m not purporting to document a scene with a goal to reflect reality anyway, so why not play, especially when I’m on vacation?

There is always the possibility that I will come back to these photos later, and find them dated-looking and hokey because of the processing that I did at the time. But, like all things, they are a reflection of myself at the time–of my vision, of my feelings, of what I am seeking to show.

My ultimate goal is always to create photos that I enjoy, and that transport me back to whatever place or feeling. I enjoy sharing, and hope that others like them too, but that’s always a secondary objective.

Mostly, I can’t leave well enough alone if I have a camera with me–I have to fiddle, have to make photographs.