Photo Fermata

Holding the Moment

Welcome
Mission of this new(ish) blog:
I strive to be the artist I am.  This blog is one of my outlets to share my thoughts, creations, fears, education and stories of making art.  It may be selfish, but this is my blog to help me become a better artist and I hope you will find something of value along the way.

The shift from the S7S.  
I think the old blog was getting a bit stale and had lost its focus.  I rambled about whatever and not as much about what was important to my art.  I wrote about my sexual longing and issues, art, work, my truck, politics and everything that popped into my head.  This blog may have some of that, but not as much.  It is time to move on and not dwell on so many things I can not change or am too lazy to try.

The Fermata Symbol

Photo Fermata
Deja vu, momentary lapse, tuning out, zoning out, in the zone.  We all feel life pause or hold onto the second we are in longer than usual.

When I played in symphonies and bands, the fermata would make us stop going on in the music and continue playing the note we were on.  When we saw the note with the fermata above it, we would look up to the director and watch him or her for the signal to stop that note and continue onto the next note in the original tempo.  We were told that the fermata's duration was at the discretion of the director as to shape the music.  We could not stop the fermata.  If the conductor keeled over, the note would go on.  That is the control of the conductor at that moment.

Many other groups of musicians play fermatas.  Have you ever watched a jazz or rock band hold a note until one of the musicians makes a movement and the either they go on or they end the song?  That is a fermata.

Every photo is a fermata.  For the duration of the shutter, every bit of information carried into the camera through light particles freezes into a solitary moment on the film or sensor.  Sometimes the subject is frozen in place and other times it appears as a motion blur.  The image though captures all that as if it was time put on hold.   Even though a fast moving subject may be frozen in time, the viewer knows that it was moving and continued moving after photo was taken, just like music.

 Blue Angel 5  600+mph

Photo by Karl

The earliest experience most of us have with the photo fermata is when the school portrait photographer said told us to look at the camera and say "cheeeeeeeeese."  Each of those photos is us holding that "eeeeeeee" sound for the length of time the photographer felt was needed to get the correct exposure.

Fire Dancer - Burning Man

As a photographer, and a begrudging subject/model, I've grown to know the roles in the art.  The model and subject fill the screen with what is needed.  All the roles are crucial to the success of the photo, but it is the photographer who decides how to take the photo.  *To paraphrase Richard Avedon when talking about the model/photographer/subject,  "You are very important and I could not do this with out you, but I am in control."

I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable. - Richard Avedon 

 My photographic artistic purpose then is to make that held moment important enough to capture and share.  It may only be important to me, but that is important enough to take it.  This blog is dedicated to those captured visual holds or fermatas.

Special thanks to my blog world friends for your support during the remodel.  A special nod to Joe and his blog, Improvisations, for giving me the idea of connecting music to photography.