bits and pieces 20

What I feel is that the picture-taking process, anyway a greater part of it, is an intuitive thing. You can’t go out and logically plan a picture, but when you come back, reason then takes over and verifies or rejects whatever you’ve done. So that’s why I say that reason and intuition are not in conflict–they strengthen each other. 

Wynn Bullock

I have to agree…

I don’t plan photographs. Something I see either moves me to photograph it or it doesn’t — it’s what I call stopping me in my tracks, or grabbing me in the gut. I’ll explore it from different angles or perspectives, but that exploration is seldom verbal or logical. More often it’s visual and intuitive. The thinking and reasoning come after the fact… sometimes the image works, oftentimes not. That’s the way I photograph… I don’t know about you.

Wynn Bullock wasn’t as well known as some of the other photographers working in his day, though he was quite well known in some circles, and was one of the master photographers during the middle of the last century.

I’ve read a few interviews with him, and he was a very interesting man as well as an exceptional photographer. Some of his thoughts resonate profoundly with me, though strangely enough I never really connected with his photography. Maybe you will.

Wynn Bullock (Aperture Masters of Photography)

some great books

I love to read about master photographers from the past. Maybe you do too. The work they did, the lives they lived, and the thoughts and philosophies they developed over the years can be both fascinating and inspiring. Here’s a short list of a few of the books that I’ve read, some several times, over the years and that will always have a place on my bookshelf. I highly recommend each and every one of them.

Ansel Adams: A Biography

Ansel Adams: Classic Images

Ansel Adams: Letters, 1916 – 1984

The Daybooks of Edward Weston; Two Volumes in One: I. Mexico, II. California

Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History: The Story of the Legendary Photo Agency

Dialogue with Photography: Interviews by Paul Hill and Thomas Cooper

Focus: Memoirs of a Life in Photography

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