This “Morning Musing” post is related to the photograph I shared here earlier this today: “Flooded Field, Winter.” I made this photograph last winter on New Year’s Day, when a group of us (friends who are all involved in photography in one way or another) gathered before dawn at a favorite migratory bird location to again welcome the literal dawn of the new year together.
I am aware that no one else see a photograph in the same way that it is seen by the photographer who made it. The backstory of this image reminds me that the viewer, in a sense, can see it more objectively for what it is as a pure visual image, though he or she may be able be able to share with the photographer some of the implications and connections that such a photograph might evoke. The photographer has a unique internal knowledge of and relationship to the photograph that can never be completely understood by the viewer, even by a viewer who might like the photograph a great deal. When I tell you that the photograph was made on a cold and foggy New Year’s Day, in the company of good friends and photographers, you know more about the context, and this knowledge mights shift the way that you understand the photograph, but I can never take you all the way “there.”
The photograph also reminds me of one other wonderful thought. Fall is coming, and then winter, and soon the birds will return to Central Valley, and my friends and I will meet there once again on mornings much like this one. I can’t wait!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.