A few months ago I visited Guggenheim in Bilbao. Their Photography and Video Exhibition. I’ve always been inspired by seeing other work, sometimes they provoke you into a mindset, at other times they confirm you in your own direction. Just as wild and mind-blowing the Guggenheim is seen from the outside, just as different it is seen from the inside. The outside is a piece of art by itself, where the inside makes the room become one with the pieces on display. Simplicity, Singletons, and space is communicator surrounding the works.
Taking in Guggenheim is not just a thing you do, it takes time to digest all the impressions and derive meaning in the many works of art. Then it struck me, how it relates to my photography. In photography there seem to exist an tendency for creating uncountable, you might say, excessive amount of images. Photography is seen as a simple process of just “pressing a button.”
Ansel Adams himself once said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.”, I would say twelve significant photographs is by itself a high goal.
Like paintings or sculpting, photography takes a lot of time and work. Creating powerful photographs is hard work. Uniqueness and a Powerful message, seems to get lost amount the many copies of the same photo. Shooting 1000 pictures of a scene isn’t ensuring that one of them hits the expression we seek.
I guess what I am airing here is a thought about refraining from quick walks through the landscape, and photograph everything you find interesting, putting only immediate thoughts into composition. I would like to advocate on more putting deliberate thought into photographs.
By asking myself, how the two dimensional scene should be communicated, by observing it and trying to determine what is essential . I find setting a dogme surrounding, yes even dictating, my photography tours helps on this. My dogme is to shoot less than 24pictures on a day, allowing me to spend more time with every photo.
The Golden Hour 