Still photography has fascinated me for over fifty years. It’s held my interest for a number of reasons: the art (aesthetics); the science (optical, mechanical, chemical and now digital); the history (both of the craft and the greater history); though most interesting are the “details” frozen in time. These details, whether a human expression, a dance movement, the textures of skin or flowers or feathers or bugs or the cosmos, the frozen instant from a sporting event, or any other “detail” sliced out of a fraction of a second of life, seem poignant – lost if not for the photograph – full of previously unknown (or at least unnoticed) information – at least to me.
Jacques-Henri Lartigue said, “Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true.”
Eliot Porter suggested, “Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject.”
This morning I photographed yet another bit of frozen water; mostly because of the color of the ribbon from which the water dripped. Upon looking at the photograph, as so often happens, I observe a tiny detail within the frame — a single snow flake clinging to the bottom of the icicle. “That’s the photograph!” I said to myself and immediately went back to capture that tiny fragment. But the “event” had passed – was no longer available – vanished.
(click photograph for larger view)
Leica R8/DMR, 60 mm Macro Elmarit
