Musings #2 - Heart and Soul

Photographers don’t take photographs, they make them. They make them based on a series of decisions that include composition/framing, lighting, angles, depth of field, and timing. Point-and-shoot rarely creates a good photograph.

Therefore, making photographs can be likened to playing a musical instrument, such as the piano.

Playing the piano involves understanding where the keys are, learning music and practicing. After enough practice a person can play the keys in the right order.

But are they a musician or have they just learned a skill?

It could be argued that music is more than just technical ability. Great musicians play from the heart, their music has feeling that vibrates through the airwaves alongside the notes and it moves the music from just an acoustic experience to a visceral one. As a listener we don't have to know the music to feel it, there is something in the playing that touches us, which is much more than technical ability.

The same is true of photography. Technical skills enable the photographer to 'take' a picture, but to 'make' a picture that connects with an audience requires the photographer to give the same heart and soul to the image as a good musician does to music.

As the photographer in a situation or environment you are not only observing, you are experiencing. There will be an energy or a stillness, it might be the calm before an eruption or serenity. The scene may feel chaotic, you might sense nervousness or confidence.

The role of the photographer is not just to frame and photograph the visible, it is to try and capture the intangible. This is what vocal artists can do with lyrics. One person can sing the lyrics and we can hear them, yet another person can sing the same lyrics and we feel them, we connect with them on an emotional level.