The Soul of a Photograph

For lack of a better subject and with too little caffeine coursing through my veins -- I will remedy that soon -- I think I'll ramble on a bit with a (semi-conscious) stream of consciousness rendering of my thoughts regarding the soul of a photograph.

Do all photographs have a soul?

Maybe. But some seem to reveal and expose their souls more then others do.

What is the soul of a photograph?

FWIW, here's what I think it is: The soul of a photograph is that thing that sets it apart in such a way that transcends the technical aspects of craft and touches its viewers in very "human" ways. Certainly, lighting, exposure, composition, subject, and more all impact the sense of a photograph having soul. But it's more than that. Probably, a lot more.

Some believe the soul of a photograph is something that exists in the light and the way light reveals itself and manipulates an image. Personally, I don't agree. I think light is a critical element, working its magic to expose and highlight a photo's soul, but the soul of a photograph does not reside in the captured light itself or the way it sings and dances within an image.

Others seem to think the soul of a photograph exists in that fleeting moment the shutter is tripped. Apparently, they believe the difference between exposing soul in a photo (or not exposing it) lies in some small fraction of a second. For instance, it's there one moment and, 1/200th of a second later, POOF! (It's gone.) I don't completely buy into this theory either, although there are aspects of it I subscribe to. Sure, capturing soul in a photo is elusive and there's certainly the right time to do it and the wrong time to do it and the difference between the right and wrong times might only be a fraction of a second, but capturing that perfect moment does not always guarantee a photograph with lots of soul.

There are those who say the soul of a photograph lies in the subject and it's the photographer's job to reveal it. I suppose this notion moves slightly closer to my thinking on the subject. But if it has merit, it begs questions like: Does a rock have soul? After all, we've all seen incredible images of inanimate objects, like rocks, where the images definitely have soul. (Think Ansel Adams.)

I think I've decided the soul of a photograph lies in the person who captures it. In other words, it's a little bit of the photographer's soul, recorded onto the image, that produces a photograph with soul. It is the photographer's human and emotional point-of-view or vision that gives a photograph its soul. But it only happens when the shooter captures that human-tainted vision in such a way that a tiny bit of the photographer's soul is successfully recorded onto a sensor chip or a film emulsion. And when it's recorded in such a way that it touches viewers the same way it touched the photographer, causing viewers to "feel" that bit of human soul that has been captured, we realize that a photograph has soul.

There are cultures whose people will not permit themselves to be photographed because they believe the process of doing so steals their souls. I think those people have it wrong. It is not their souls that are being stolen, it is bits and pieces of the photographer's soul that sometimes gets hijacked in the process of snapping pictures.

Does this mean the more successful a soul-rendering photographer might be the less soul he or she ends up retaining? I doubt it. There's something infinite about souls. And it doesn't take a very big chunk of soul, recorded onto a photograph, for others to be moved by it... to feel it's power.

And no, I haven't been smoking that funny, green stuff today. I'm just babbling for no apparent reason other than the blog is due for an update. Plus, my brain appears to have too much time on its hands.

Time for another cup of Joe.

The pretty girl at the top is Brooke from last week. I lit Brooke with two light sources: A main light using a bare-bulb modified with a silk scrim set on a separate stand and a back light modified with a small umbrella at the top of the winding staircase. MUA was MaryAnn.