The Joy of Light

A few days ago I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, "the Irish Photography Podcast", and the subject came around to photography tours. The question was, if ten people are watching a scene together, say of a beautiful sunset, and they all take a picture, could one of them be "fine art" and the others just snapshots? And why would that be so? That got me thinking and I wrote about it in The Joy of Light, here: https://flynngraphics.ca/group-art/

I found another Art Gallery: "Silk Art Gallery" here in Port Moody in British Columbia. Great little gallery. When I found it last week they had a one woman show on display by Valerie Butters. She is a B.C. artist who does wonderful large colorful canvases full of abstract flowers. This got me thinking about my photography and the limitations of my camera. Why can't I splash color around like Valerie does? And if I did, would it still be photography? That argument goes all the way back to the 1850's. I have written about the gallery and my thoughts on abstract painting with lots of pictures. Check it out at https://flynngraphics.ca/silk/

In my thinking on the subject of art in photography I have been going back to the earliest days of our craft looking for what those pioneers thought about art. I discovered that in the earliest days, photography was created by graphic artists and that they dominated our craft for its first 50 years. It is an interesting story. I have written about those early years in some detail in my blog here: https://flynngraphics.ca/but-is-it-art-part-i/ I hope you find it instructive. I have been away from my blog for some time. This is not lack of interest. It is simply a matter of time, the one thing I do not have enough of.

You don't need a thousand dollar lens to create photographic art. In fact, you can take wonderful images with the most unlikely lenses! For instance, you could use the lens from a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera, which will cost almost nothing, and take great pictures with it. You could create "art", whatever that is, with it! I recently experimented with such a lens and have written about it in the Joy of Light at https://flynngraphics.ca/a-simple-lens/

I have been reading several books on early photography lately and looking at images from the turn of the last century and before. It has been an eye opener. I have never really stopped and considered the work of early photographers and I am realizing how good they were. I have written about it with a few sample images: https://flynngraphics.ca/seeing-old-pictures-anew/ I hope you find it interesting.

Taking pictures has always been a joy for me but the other day I had a rather unpleasant experience with people objecting to my taking pictures in a public place in the presence of children. I am not sure how I should have handled it or how to handle it in the future. What do you think? https://flynngraphics.ca/an-unfortunate-event/