Andre’ the Fuji X100T and I hit the streets for a walk-a-bout. I hear tell that we as shooters should seek the fleeting moment. I dunno, I mean isn’t every moment a fleeting moment? So how to distinguish between a fleeting moment of time and a fleeting moment of time worth making a photo of? Well I guess it depends on your frame of mind and your emotional state at the moment of exposure. So, maybe we kinda get in the zone that I always talk about. Maybe that zone creates a preconceived set of emotions and thoughts that will influence the subject of your photos. I know a few shooters that say they shoot clean. They don’t let anything get into the mix of what they are doing. How is that possible? I mean, is it really possible to be clean, to shoot clean.

For me, it’s impossible to be clean to the point they say. I have emotions and thoughts and they have the freedom of existence. I don’t stifle either or more either. So, what is this clean they talk about? If in fact there is a clean state to work, does that imply that without that state, we work dirty? Perhaps a dirty state is one which has baggage in it. I’m not a virgin shooter. I like to work and have my thoughts and emotions working with me. I like the movement from frame to frame that comes from working this way. I like when I get to Light Room, seeing the image and how it conjures up what I was thinking and feeling at the moment of exposure. So at this late age, I am learning that there are those amongst us that try to shoot clean and that it’s fine with me but it ain’t my style.

Do our photos reflect any kind of truth? I know that they don’t really reflect the truth that many think or expect them to do. There is a difference in the photo if the viewer is the viewer or if the viewer is the shooter. As a viewer, the photo holds the truth of it’s own special existence, no more, no less. All that lives in the image is gazed upon and brought to life for the viewer, no questions answered and no lies become truths. The shooter as viewer has a much more interactive position because they remember the moment leading up to and exposure. The have locked in their memory banks in the brain, the experience of making the photo.

So the shooter is the problem in viewing photos because they may have made the photo with a so called Clean plate but when they view it, they are filled with the baggage that was at the moment of exposure. It it very hard to disengage the brain or mind from process to viewing.

More tomorrow………….