MarcAdamus

Here's to hoping everyone realizes their potential as artists in the coming year.  We cannot run from the challenges that face us, but rather we must see them as opportunities to grown and learn.  We have the ability to change the world if we keep our hearts and minds alive and open.

Best to all.

All art is in essence, a form of expression.  Photography is often broadly labeled as art, despite its somewhat unique relationship with reality.  For some, myself included, photography is just like any other art form – an attempt to involve its audience with a creative emotional context that can range from the beautiful, the horrific, the amazing or the profound.  Art of any kind derives great power from an ability to stir a connection with its viewer and evoke an emotional response.  

The viewer of photography may, for better or often worse, be under the preconceived notion that a photograph is merely a form of documentation of an actual event.  While it is true that the camera is a tool designed to render an image of reality as closely as the limits of a two dimensional medium will allow, let us not forget that it alone is often a wholly inadequate representation of our experience, whatever that may be.  Our experience is so much more than any camera can capture.

Even in the hands of a master, a camera alone will never capture anything as we can observe it with all of our senses.  My goal is to illustrate the rich experiences I have had in this world as best as I can within the limits of this two-dimensional medium. I do make every effort to record a scene as faithfully as I can, true to the subject matter without adding or removing anything of significance, yet there is never an absolute definition of what I saw in the image to begin with. How we see is a very personal thing. To this point, I believe a great photograph is not merely documenting the scene at hand, rather it is about fusing the essential vision of the artist with the landscape.

The artist’s vision can come from anywhere.  Often, and not the least bit sadly in my estimation, one’s personal vision can be rooted in a deep personal pain or struggle that simply cannot be remedied in a way other than the type of expression that comes from art.  In all our lives, there is at least some sort of unresolved emotional content which can manifest itself in any number of artistic ways.  Art is the great release.  It allows us to channel our deepest thoughts and interpretations, and share them with others in a way uniquely our own.  

I want my photographs to record the scene at hand in all the detail that the camera recorded, but my art does not stop there.  I have traveled through nature much of my life and yet struggled to reconcile those experiences in nature with everything else around me.  My photography provides me a bridge with which I can make this connection.  I can show you a place, and hopefully, I can convey something of my experience to the viewer as well.

I very much enjoy the hunt for the grand, vast, dramatic types of landscapes that lead the eye on a journey through many beautiful elements.  It’s a challenging pursuit that leads me to rugged and remote places, and consumes much of my life.  It takes a lot of time to research, travel and explore these places.  Naturally, however, the quest for such images can be consuming to such an extent that it can result in too much of a narrow, single-minded focus.  One must always realize, that great images can be found almost anywhere – even our own backyards.  The ‘magic mushrooms’ image you see here was taken right outside my door!  

The little things – the scene within a scene, can be equally fascinating and yield an even broader array of photographic opportunities if you know how to look.  I’m going to take a break from the ever popular big, sweeping landscape for a moment to present some abstract renditions – the images you see below to your left on this page (although examples in my gallery here are certainly not limited to these four).  ‘Seeing’ the abstract within the landscape is a matter of changing our focus from compelling near/far compositions to looking at a scene in terms of patterns, layers, contrasts, textures and simple, attractive subject matter.   Diversify your thinking and experiment.  These little scenes are challenging to find, but equally rewarding for me, if not more so.   They rarely have the mass-appeal or ‘wow’ factor of a grand scenic, but they can tell a story equally well.  

Take a moment to consider this when you’re out in the field.  It’s too easy to limit yourself, when pursuing a very specific type of image.  Look everywhere around you.