On Vision… Part 1

David Ward

T-shirt winning landscape photographer, one time carpenter, full-time workshop leader and occasional author who does all his own decorating.

davidward.photo

"Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed."  Gary Winogrand

Photographing something changes how we view it. Period. That’s a straightforward statement, but the reasons behind why and how it is changed are really quite complex. The camera is the best tool mankind has yet devised for describing the visual realm. It can do so in the most exquisite detail. And, because it captures light using the same laws of physics that govern our eyesight, its images portray a familiar perspective. So, on the face of it, pointing an automatic camera at a portion of the world and pressing the button should infallibly result in an image that is roughly equivalent to how we perceive the same scene. But, as critical consumers of photography, we know that the camera often fails to do this to our satisfaction.