Ed Cooper Photography
email: ed@edcooper.com
(Click on picture to see captions)
MY PHILOSOPHY IN PHOTOGRAPHY
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The following is a reprint from an Arizona Highways article about me in the May 1982 issue. While it is a number of years ago, it still expresses what I look for in a photograph. To me, the taking of a photo is the ultimate experience, greater than any other part of the photographic process. |
I always try to keep a fresh sense of wonderment in everything I see, and I'm really genuinely excited when I run across a picture that makes an emotional impact on me.
When I first came out West, I started mountain climbing. I liked to take pictures of the mountains while I was climbing them, but soon I found that getting the image was more important than getting to the top. Suddenly I was going to these places just to get pictures of them, expressing on film the same emotional impact I had when I first viewed them.
I like my pictures simple, with a few strong elements of design, usually one point of central focus with all the other elements leading into it. When I'm looking for a picture, I'll search around until I see something I like and then zero in on it. I hold both hands up to my eye and form a little window to look through. Then I put my eyes out of focus so I can concentrate on the elements of the picture rather than the details. If the elements look right, if the strong visual elements come together, then I know I've got a good picture.
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If I'm looking at the Grand Canyon, and I like the play of light and shadow, that excites me. It makes an emotional impact. When that happens, I feel that then it can also be meaningful to others. I'll take a picture and hope that when others look at it they'll feel the same kind of excitement I felt. I'm not looking for deeper meanings, I just look primarily for the picture, for something that makes a statement. CAPTIONS: |
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Close up view--working with a 4x5 Ikeda field view camera. It weighs only 2 1/4 pounds without the lens. Photo by David Buchholz.
Above view: #413261--The Grand Canyon as seen through an arch on the south rim. This location is not very far from viewpoints near the Visitor Center, but it is slightly below the rim edge. This is a reproduction from a calendar. Back to TOP
