About the Photographer - Landscape Photography by Douglas Vincent
A bit about why photography...
If I could describe exactly why I photograph I suspect I would have to give up the medium all together. Fortunately, things aren't that easy. Over time I've come to acknowledge a tenable personal truth - I'm fueled by what seems to be a quiet rage, a deep desire to fully engage in the universality of life, the grand mystery I believe we are all connected to.
Photographing near Yosemite
In daily terms I'm driven passionately to make sense of things, to capture something about life that I'm yearning for in myself. Where I discover beauty and truth, I feel compelled to communicate it. In my post college years I was drawn to photography as a medium for creatively expressing what I was feeling and learning. Something of a romantic traditionalist, I recognize that nothing I do is necessarily new, but, if true to myself, it is wholly rewarding.
My inspiration is largely the natural world, particularly the American West. Whether exploring the varied canyons of Zion National Park or hiking the rich desolate peaks of the White Mountains I find a sense of communion where subject matter has the power to teach me much about myself. But the learnings and the associated photographic images are tied to the acuteness of my receptivity, a discipline of letting both elusive and frustrating.
When I go out photographing, I usually enter into a struggle where I work to release the very order and logic that routinely governs my daily life. I'm attempting to enter into a deep conversation with the landscape. For me, the process is a meditation, a "non-effort" in becoming fully present and engaged in my immediate surroundings. On a good day, struggle turns to inspiration. But as Edward Weston intimated, inspiration is only 5% of the journey.
Enjoying a moment of adversity
The remaining 95% is an effort in combining my knowledge and experience to create the optimum composition (the photograph) that effortlessly communicates the inspiration. Often, after exploring an image in a myriad of possibilities, I realize the image simply cannot be worked out. I acknowledge the experience with a bow and walk away. After many years, the bows don't get any easier.
But then there are moments where it all flows so effortlessly, I feel I'm riding the waves of some magical omnipotent power that's taken temporary favor of me. And I remember what Ansel said, sometimes you do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.
Additional Links: The Road to Photography • Original Statement (1999)
