Artistic Position
Joe’s goal is to create images that are emotional renderings of the scenes Joe experience and continuous and expands tenets of modern Fine art photography. Like the classical masters that preceded him, Joe seeks unique scenes and subjects and natural lighting conditions. For him, a good photograph is often created in bad weather, and seeks these weather conditions to photograph in. When a scene has been selected and needs to be captured, the light is his first and foremost concern because it is light that is the most important consideration in photography once the subject matter has been identified. He would thus identify what should be captured and would return many times and ultimately years later to have the right lighting conditions connect with the scene. Similar, and again like the classical masters that preceded him, Joe is constantly searching for those natural locations that will afford him the means of creating exiting compositions. To this end, the vantage point of the location itself is very important. However, the small details found at a specific location is just as important; Patterns in rock formation , angles , lines, circles, patterns, the visual rhythm formed by plants and rocks effectively visually organised and the repetition of similar- shaped elements . Images that encapsulate a deeper story within the scene that was captured as well as a deeper message to his audience are also Joe’s specialities. The proverbial “a picture paints a thousand words”.
Combining the large landscapes in front of him with the intimate landscape at his feet enables Joe to create dynamic compositions. Often near-far compositions, this approach allows him to show a scope of view larger than our eye can see in a single glance. While his images may appear “natural” many of them cannot be seen as such because the field of view they encompass far exceeds what the eye can see at once.
Again, like the classical masters before him, in what was for them the darkroom which for Joe is the digital studio, Joe uses the tools available to him to refine the colour, contrast and density of his photographs. His aim, as theirs was, is to create a final print that expresses what Joe saw or felt to turn things seen into things known. However while the classical masters sought to do little to their work in regards to composition after the photograph has been taken, Joe expands his work in this domain as well. Still using the digital tools available to him, Joe combines, reformats and warps images as he sees necessary to expand his vision. Combination of images, from 2-8 or more is necessary when the camera cannot capture the field of view Joe wants to show in a single frame. Adjusting the format of an image is necessary when an image does not offer the format or the dynamics that Joe is looking for. And warping of the image is often required after images have been combined in order to turn the technical output of the computer into an image whose composition is artistically structured. Digital processing gives the artist many tools that were not available in a darkroom environment. However, many photographers working with digital processing today apply the traditional darkroom approach to their digital processing work in a literal fashion. In doing so they forfeit many of the possibilities provided to them by digital processing. Many of the tools and possibilities offered by digital processing are not used when the traditional approach is applied to digital processing.
Joe feels that the traditional approach to landscape photography is unnecessary limiting when applied to digital image processing. Giving himself the freedom to expand beyond the boundaries of the traditional approach allows Joe to create images that go beyond what can be achieved through a literal reduction of the traditional approach in a digital context. It is this freedom that allows him to explore the numerous creative possibilities provided by digital processing. In turn, this freedom of exploration is what allows him to create new and never before seen images of a specific subject or place-. Both his approach and his creative work Joe demonstrates a daringness to explore territory unchartered by many landscape photographers so far.
This methodology allows Joe to continue working within the traditional approach to landscape photography while expanding his style beyond this traditional approach. In doing so Joe gives a large freedom to his artistic approach , a freedom that allows him to create images that go beyond what can be done within the limitations if traditional landscape photography .
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