Kaitrin Acuna
One line in Nancy Newhall's piece on Ansel Adams that stood out to me was the comparison of a print to a symphony. Adams had said that a truly fine print was like listening to a symphony, "...the appreciation of the broad, melodic line, while important, is no means all.' For it to be all, would be like saying the subject of the photo makes the photo. While in some cases this may be important for the success of the photo, it is not the overarching subject matter that will make the difference between a good photo and a great photo. Adams elaborates by saying it is the minor subtleties, the tiny nuances that make a photo able to be appreciated. This is true for music and for photography.
I think it's true that the more you know about a topic, the more you can appreciate the beauty in it. Overall, I know quite little about composing music, but I know today far more than I knew a few years ago. Because of this, there are things that I hear in symphonies that I would not have appreciated, or perhaps even heard without being educated on them.
The same hold true with being a photographer. When I look at a photograph, there are an endless number of aspects to notice. Was it film or digital? What kind of film? Why was it exposed like that? Is that window light? Was there a reflector or was there a window across the other side of the room? Did the photographer find this moment, or construct it? Was this dawn or dusk? Did she develop the film to get this amount of noise on purpose? Why a square crop? Was this medium format? Is the photographer the subject? Why are the prints in this order? These are all questions about the medium itself that it would not have occurred to me to even consider five years ago.
The subtitles of any art form make for an increase in appreciation, and I believe the more you know on a medium, the more you will find to love about it.
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