Stream and Peak. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A small subalpine stream descends from higher terrain among the peaks of hte Sierra crest.
Sometimes I manage to tweak some people a bit by saying, “All photographs lie.” I probably should explain. Too often there is an assumption that photographs are about showing the objective qualities of subjects, and that the best photographs simply convey the reality of these things. I think that is mistaken, and that photographs are literally incapable of being objective analogs of their subjects. Almost everything about a photograph is subjective. How did we choose to frame it? What did we choose to leave out? What time of day did we make it? What lens did we choose? Did we choose color or black and white? If there is a “truth” in a photograph it is the truth about the photographer’s subjective response to the subject. (This is a partial explanation of why two photographers who photograph the same subject usually end up with quite different photographs.)
Beyond that, there are many aspects of a subject that a photograph simply cannot contain. The sound of little mountain streams is central to my experience of places like this, but it is not found in a photograph. A photograph cannot capture the breeze or the slight chill of the shade in high mountains. The knowledge of what lies between this small stream and the lake at the base of those peaks isn’t found here. How I came to find myself at this place is not known to the viewer. Where is this place, and does that even matter?
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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I like your point about the difference between how we speak to beginning photographers and casual photographers… and perhaps other groups as well.
Because this concept of “reality” is so ingrained in photography (I say that “photography carries the burden of the presumption of reality,” or similar), it is hard to get some folks to see that this is a terribly constricting notion about photography.
This is not to say that “truth” and honesty aren’t issues in photography — just not in quite the way that some think.
I like having this conversation with beginning photographers. I don’t like having this same conversation with casual observers. With the beginner the world is open and full of possibilities and this often helps break through the need to be slavishly representational and expand into creativity. With the casual observer I find eyes gloss over the moment I bring up focal length and compression. I would much rather frame the conversation in terms of “artist with a camera.”