My Art

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

I will never forget a few years ago, I was doing a lesson with my student called “what is art?” I had posted several photographs around the room of various pieces of art. They walked around the room, looked at it, and said none of it was art because it was just a picture.

I explained we were looking at the subject of the photo in order to determine if that was art, not the photo itself. I remember asking myself, “why can’t a photograph be art?”

I asked that question before I even started to take up the hobby. Now I look at many of the photos I take and ask myself, “why can’t this be considered art?” Here is why I consider my photography art.

⏲ I take time to go out, take the photo, and edit it later in order to bring out what’s look best about.

🗺 I research and check out different locations before I go out and photograph them.

🖼 I practice and research in order to get better. I try to go out and take photos at least once a week, and I try and learn different techniques in order to improve my craft.

💻 I enjoy looking and working with the photos I take. Sure, maybe everyone doesn’t like my photographs, but I do. I have a few printed at work and displayed on a custom calendar I made at the beginning of the year.

These photos I took at South Mountain State Park are some of my favorites that I have taken this year. My son and I hiked to this point together. Since I had been practicing my photography, I was able to capture these great photos of High Shoals Waterfalls. When we visited, we hiked two different trails. We started on the short river trail when we first arrived, and then found the main waterfall trail. By the time we arrived at the lower part of the falls we were so tired from hiking everywhere else, we decided that we were done at that point. So, I took as many photos as I could, and then we decided to head back to our campground.