ku # 1387 / diptych # 212 ~ it's "on the wall"

marsh / Lake Champlain ~ Peru, NY - in the Adirondack PARK (click to embiggen)

marsh tree / horse farm ~ Peru, NY / Clintonville, NY - in the Adirondack PARK (click to embiggen)

Despite the fact that I can write or talk about what it is that I am drawn to making pictures of and how I approach making those pictures - don't think, see and just shoot - (the why and the how) I rarely, if ever, write or talk about any meaning to be found in my pictures.

If I am ever asked to comment on why I think any of my pictures "work" (why a picture resonates with a viewer) in a visual or emotional / intellectual sense, I am inclined not to answer that question with words.

iMo, words and pictures are 2 distinctly different means of communication. Each "language" requires a different set of "tools" to understand what is being expressed. Even with the intelligent use of those "tools", words can be ambiguous and most photographs are intrinsically ambiguous. A picture's meaning - what the picture maker may be trying to express (if anything) beyond a picture's visual content - is subject(ive) to a viewer's personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. And that is precisely the way it should be.

None other than William Eggleston, when asked why his pictures "work", answered that he "has never been able to find the words" to answer that question. I suspect that feeling is shared by great number of picture makers because ...

As Paul Strand said when asked to define his pictures, "The answer is on the wall."