Snapshots

Last weekend, we visited a site from my childhood—the dam of the Croton Reservoir in New York’s Westchester County. Needless to say, we took lots of photos (as did one of the friends who accompanied us). Almost every time this little group is together, we visit some photogenic spot and we try to make the best of it. Later, we exchange the photos we’ve taken.

Here’s one:

Invariably, one of those friends later sends me a message along the lines of, “How come your photos always look better than mine?”

I’m not very good at accepting compliments—even if they’re framed in the form of a question. It might just be bad manners, but I think it’s a variation of the Imposter Syndrome. Not that I believe that my work is unworthy, but if there is such a thing as talent (which I don’t believe), and I actually have it, then whatever comes of that “talent” has more to do with genetics than any effort on my part.

It would be the equivalent of taking credit for being tall.

So I usually shrug off her comparison of our photos with some glib remark, such as, “While you were studying English in college, I was taking art classes,” or “Maybe it’s because there are no people in most of my photos.” I don’t like to include people in my photos.

If my photos really are better than hers—a highly subjective, hence dubious, distinction—it may be the result of both of my deflections. Certainly, taking so many art classes must have influenced the way I see things. But the decision to exclude people from my photos is even more closely aligned with that art school training.

When most people take pictures, I suspect they hope to “capture the moment”—perhaps a social event, or maybe they just want to document the fact that they really had been in the place photographed. Also, I think most people see something beautiful “out there” and, in assuming that “the camera doesn’t lie,” they just click the shutter. They think that will be enough to capture that beauty.

There are all kinds of technical reasons why they’re bound to be disappointed by the results, but the simplest explanation is that camera only captures the light bouncing off the subject, but the eye complicates the process of seeing by adding in memory, other environmental aspects of the situation, the viewer’s mental and emotional state, and god-knows-what-else is going on in the snapshooter’s head.

What we think we see is not what is “out there.” The camera cannot see what’s in our heads.

One of the reasons I try to exclude people from my photos is their unpredictability. I can set up everything, exactly as I want it to appear, and someone will blink, sneeze, fart (and blame it on someone else), or otherwise manifest their humanity. If their humanity was my subject, maybe I’d welcome their spontaneous contributions.

Mostly, I don’t want it.

All photos are design projects. They employ various techniques in an attempt to cajole the camera into compliance with the image in my head.

When I look at a scene, it’s as if I’ve been handed a collection of images, and been assigned the task of making a well-designed collage from them. I might have to move into a position that allows me to frame the composition to my liking, or back up, or move in, or switch to an angle that lets the light shape the scene, or switch the lens’s focal length—which I often do to flatten (minimize), or increase, the picture’s depth of perspective.

And—on very rare occasions—I might even allow humans on the scene (if they serve my purpose). Each artist must be a form of tyrant. In the last shot, below, the tiny human is my wife. She was taking a close-up picture of the dam, something that did not—at all—interest me at the time. What did interest was the sheer size of the dam—and she provides scale.

She’s there as a hint that the dam is much bigger than the size of the photo. I never asked her if she’d even considered the threat of thirty billion gallons of water pressing on the other side of that wall.

But I got the shot.

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