I like that, Alan Klein - yes, as photographers we really are sorting through all the "clutter", as it were, in search something interesting: be it an abstract, impressionistic or realistic interpretations of the reality that defines our space.
Lance A. Lewin
Atlanta
That's not exactly what I meant. Our brain removes the clutter automatically when we look at a scene. Our brain is not aware of the tree branch sticking out of the head of the subject. It "photoshops" our images for us automatically. That's why so many of a shots don;t look like we imagined them at the time we saw them. Because our cameras can't filter out that stuff. It records everything.
So the photographer has to analyze a scene the he finds interesting. He then has to move around to compose the scene or come back another day or whatever, to remove all that stuff that a painter would not include in his painting in the first place. If there's too much negative space on one side of his canvas, a painter would just fill it in with some object. Another tree or rock or whatever. The photographer has to get it in there with something that's actually being photographed. This is why so many photos fail. When shooting real life, you're stuck with all these variables. You have to figure out how to eliminate them or "move" them in a way that makes the photo work aesthetically. The painter is free from these restrictions.
