Art & Photography

Today, Tony H introduced me with the term "Orton Effect" in photography. You must have seen it many many times already, it's a common technique used by wedding photographers which makes surreal effect that make bride & groom glow under photo. Anyway upon more research done on this technique, I stumble upon website of a long time pro photographer , Freeman Patterson who has 40+ years of experience in photography and won countless awards through out the years. Included on his website is a page describing his thought on photography & arts.

"Every artist is, first of all, a craftperson thoroughly knowledgeable about the materials, tools, and techniques of his or her particular medium and skilled in using many of them.

However, in my view, no amount of technical knowledge and competence is, of itself, sufficient to make a craftperson into an artist. That requires caring -- passionate caring about ultimate things. For me there is a close connection between art and religion in the sense that both are concerned about questions of meaning -- if not about the meaning of existence generally, then certainly about the meaning of one's individual life and how a person relates to his or her total community/environment. This is not to say that every work of art is or should be a heavily profound statement, indeed many may be very light-hearted, but rather that consciously and unconsciously an artist engaged in serious work is always raising or dealing with the question: "What really matters?"" - Freeman Patterson

This really illustrated how I felt about photography, as a mean and not the result to art.