This month's print is a creative divergence from previous prints.
I love the Southwest US for its openness, grandeur, solitude, history, and scenery. Sometimes when I am standing on an overlook, I get so enamored with the beauty and the moment that I want to jump up and down, run around in circles chasing my tail, dance, sing, and shout. Unfortunately most of the time I don't do this. But I do remember.
Often when I get back to the studio to process my images, I see the one's that remind me of that previous excitement.
I am a lines guy. I first organize what I see into lines and shapes and then colors. That is in part why the Southwest is so photographically appealing to me.
Recently I was staring at the original RAW image of this print in Lightroom, and the thought bounded into my mind, "...too many straight lines...how can I add the excitement I had at the time of capture?" (The Southwest US seems to have the corner on the world's horizontal lines!)
I started piddling with all the straight lines in the image. But then I began to feel shameful and blasphemous, changing the lines in the image the way I wanted. That was just not right. It was WRONG!!
But it felt expressive, different, and artistic...and even dangerous. I was venturing into the unknown! That always conveys a sense of danger. One shouldn't venture there. One should always stay in the known to stay secure. Right....??
Yet despite these warnings, I carried on, exploring something new that was different both in appearance and inner experience. I had crossed a threshold in making and sharing my work. As with most thresholds, I will never be able to go back.
I had previously thought of myself as a landscape artist. I thought my work was to offer in print the artistic act of increasing the colors and contrast in a unique manner. But now I was diverging into some new place without someone to follow. Not having someone to follow was part of this new frontier.
I was exploring new terrain and creating art I had not seen before in the world of landscape photography.
June 2019 print of the month.
