Saturday, December 6, 2014

My Favorite Moment

My favourite moment in photography is when I first get to see a strong or great photo laying in the fixer under normal room light. For me that is the high moment, a high like nothing else I have ever experienced in life. Sometimes I will whoop with joy or dance around my darkroom sink pumping my fist and yelling "Yes!". It probably sounds silly and looks sillier but its a great f-ckin feeling!!

That moment for me is the special time when I realize I got a shot I love, it's just a truly beautiful  feeling. This is one of the reasons why I will never give up the darkroom, pressing Control P on the keyboard in photoshop is just not the same.

Here is a short video of one of those moments not a super intense one and I shot the video after the feeling had dissipated moment but I wanted to talk about this natural high so I wrote this blog and shot this short vid. Seeing the grain/contrast/light and expression of this child set me off. This photo has some faults but bringing it to life and seeing it in all its beauty was a joyful experience.

You have an idea in your mind,  you travel around the world to photograph it, you fly back around the world to develop and print it and then all of a sudden it is there, in front of you in all its glory. A wonderful moment, caught, remembered and preserved. Something you made that did not exist before, it is your own creation, in a way your own child.  Without your effort there would be nothing but now if done properly there is something magical a piece of art that can have a profound impact and power.

The other really cool thing about photography (art) is that if you do it right your work can live on past your and the subjects lifespan, it can be a form of immortality. I hope I have made or can make at least one photo of dad that lives on after he and I are gone, it would be my tribute to him. In the next year or so I will submit some of the "Dads Last Days" documentary portrait work to my galleries list. I will also try submitting the work to the provincial collection.

You gotta love photography!

                                                                        

Update* here is a link to a higher quality Vimeo.com vid.

https://vimeo.com/113835086