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Phases

Reconciling Our Earlier Work

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Chris Murray

Chris Murray is a fine-art landscape photographer from New York State. His work has appeared in several magazines including Popular Photography, Shutterbug, Adirondack Life, Life in the Finger Lakes, and New York State Conservationist, among others. Chris’ interest in photographing landscapes is derived mainly from his love of the natural world, the same love that led him to choose geology as his first profession. In photography his goal is to make images that are not a literal document of the woods, mountains, and rivers of his home state, but rather a creative expression of his relationship with the places that ceaselessly inspire him.

chrismurrayphotography.com



I recently tackled the arduous task of reorganising the galleries on my website. The most difficult part of the process was deciding what of my earlier work to include if any. It wasn’t so much a question of quality as one of deciding which work best represents the photographer I am today. After much hand wringing and back and forth, I ultimately chose to include some of my earlier work and exclude the rest, but I still feel uneasy about the decision and the question has continued to nag at me.

Chris Murray - Branch Grasses

Like most photographers, there are distinct periods to my work.

There was nothing in my work to differentiate me from the throngs of other photographers. That all changed five years ago when I began to make much more creative, personally expressive work, an evolution that continues to this day. The question I have been wrestling with is, how do I regard the work prior to this shift? Do I ignore it or embrace it?



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