Photographic Projections: Expectancy in Photography

Last Updated on August 1, 2016 by Patrick

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

It’s often indicated by professional landscape photographers to look behind, while out in the field shooting, because one may never know what he or she is missing and this practice in photography goes back from the beginning of landscape and nature photography in the west, with Minor White, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell and so on.

In the previous chapter I was talking about open mindedness in photography but also not ignoring the aspect of planning shots while in the field photographing, suggesting a fine mingle between the two. I think it is best to combine both being opened to the new and being able to respond and plan carefully every shot that needs planning, every situation in the field.

But this time I want to talk more about expectancy in the art of photography. I guess this is a subject very much discussed in this matter and there are many opinions, most of them agreeing on certain particular aspects, such as planning a shoot before getting to the location, watching the weather, the temperatures in the field, the season and so on, preparing for the shoot, of course. But there are opinions that are opposing each other and these are particularities of each individual photographer, I think. One of them is about planning on the go, so to speak, on location but also being basically opened to what could come up next, to the unexpected.

There’s also another kind of expectancy, I should say, in which a photographer artist is expecting something to happen not knowing, eventually, what could be. In my particular case I know that there must be something Nature can offer me, a sight interesting enough to make me raise my camera and click the shutter. There is a knowing within me just by looking at the scene that something fulfilling the story already settled in front of my eyes must happen. The latter completes it.

In this case, while I was on the mountain peak I noticed behind me interesting window blinds of light slowly closing in on the peaks afar, out in the open. In one’s own vivid imagination light does emit sound and its every ray is a tone in a melody of space, I said to myself. A different kind of landscape, closely minimal with a tight space to squeeze light in. The composition, though fairly minimal, explored the wideness of the land yet the tightness of the scenic layers of light closing in on the horizon. Two subtly suggested mountain peaks were contoured to give a contrasting balance.