A Couple of Quotes from Freeman Patterson

“As long as you are worried about whether or not you will be able to make good pictures, or are concerned about enjoying yourself, you are unlikely either to make the best photographs you can or to experience the joy of photography to the fullest.”

            I love this sentence because it relates so much to real life. It relates not only to photography, but also to academia, athletics, talents, and one’s self-confidence. If one is not confident or secure in what they do, be it photography, academics, or other talents, they cannot completely enjoy whatever it is that they are doing and it shows in their work. Also, if one is not confident or secure in themselves, they cannot fully enjoy what life has to offer. By my own personal experience, the best photographs I have taken have been by accident or with little effort involved. In fact those photos are usually my favorites in my archives on my computer. It is because I did not worry about the composition or placement and simply pushed down the shutter button that those moments were captured and are now treasured. The same goes for anything else I’ve done. If I throw caution to the wind and go for something, I tend to reap amazing results. Also, if I have the self-confidence to believe that I can do something and not worry about messing up or making mistakes, I usually do well. 

“A small object in a large context often expresses the theme of a photograph more clearly than a single object that fills the frame.”

            This sentence intrigues me because I have actually seen photographs taken in this particular composition and have been fascinated by them. I’ve tried to create pictures of this style myself, and they have turned out pretty well. The act of placing a small object in a sea of context makes a photograph more interesting as opposed to a single subject in a larger frame in my opinion.  There’s just something about a lone item, be it a person or thing, in the midst of a landscape of either in the countryside or the city.  It makes the one viewing the photograph wonder what the story of that person or object is. If there is a photograph of  a person walking in a large field to a barn, why is he walking there? Are there horses that he takes care of, or does he like to come to the barn to think? The composition that Patterson describes here has an air of mystery that a picture of an object filling an entire frame does not. It makes the photo a work of art as opposed to just a picture taken without some sort of visible context behind it. It seems to be the difference between surface-level and truly interesting and thought-provoking.