Photography With Intention

Photography is part documentation, part story telling and part art. I try to blend these together as cohesively as possible in my images. I use my art to tell a story of the natural world around me. The image below is of a Snowy Egret preening itself after a windy flight, I sat very patiently along the edge of the river where this beautiful bird landed and waited for my moment to photograph him.

The closeup shot looks fine when viewed on Facebook or Instagram on a tiny phone screen. To me this image of the bird just doesn’t tell the complete story of the moment, it’s just a closeup shot of a bird. This tight crop might be necessary to grab a viewers attention as they are scrolling through thousands of images a day, literally, but it’s not the fully story of the scene as I experienced it.

The image below is the composition and crop I had in mind while I was in the field and viewing the scene through the viewfinder of my camera. I always have the end goal in mind when I find a subject I want to photograph, my end goal is always a print. I believe that an image is not finished until I’ve printed it on fine art paper and I can hold/feel it in my hands. While the closeup image of a bird might look impressive on a tiny phone screen, it generally doesn’t translate well to a large print framed on wall in a home or office. On the flip side of that, I’ve learned that the larger whole story images don’t necessarily translate well for tiny phone screens. Phone screens are just too small and a lot of the details get lost plus we all scroll way to fast, the smaller closeup crop of the scene help to quickly grab the viewers attention.

When I find a subject to photograph I always have in mind the final product, how it will look as a piece of art on a wall, this helps me better compose my scenes and tell a better story. The image below is a sample of the end goal in my mind, a piece of art displayed in a home.

I’m an old dog but I can still learn new tricks, I need to understand where and how viewers will be seeing my images and adjust accordingly. I’m very stubborn and don’t want to alter the final piece of art I have in my mind but if I want someone scrolling Instagram to potentially stop and view my images I need to accept that some change is necessary. The final image will always reflect my vision.