Essence of Lupines, New Brunswick, Canada
Every good photograph affects us emotionally, tells a story, or points to a particular meaning. It gets to the heart or essence of the subject. In my workshops, we discuss this topic often. What is it and how do you get to it?
Here are some of the words that workshop participants used to describe this quality.
* Heart appealing to heart
* Inner nature revealing itself.
* The root, the unchanging nature, the core, anchor, or heartbeat.
* Is-ness.
* Indispensable quality; the soul, the why.
* What is necessary or essential.
* What holds everything together.
* What’s important now.
What is that particular jewel of a moment that sings to you? We can be too close, and we can be not close enough. One way I work through this is to think about the intimate essence I want to convey, and then reach for the tool, the lens, to show exactly that. In the glory of these moments I need to step back and think about the idea I want to frame. ~ Eddie Soloway
The next time you’re out photographing think about what you want to convey. Is it an emotion or an idea? If you don’t know, how will the viewer? Then, decide how to compose. Here are a few hints. Use colour or a sense of movement to express emotion. Use lines, shapes, or textures to convey an idea. Simplify your photograph so that only what’s essential is in the frame.
What does essence mean to you? How do you express it in your photography?
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I just love your essence of lupins image! What you write is often so interesting that I forget to comment on your images. It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them, it just means I haven’t expressed my appreciation!
The essence of a photograph can be compared to what the seed is to a flower – all is contained in the origin. The immaterial shining through the material. The formless glowing through the form. When we manage to capture this, we have captured essence!
I like that, Sandra, “all is contained in the origin.”
What an amazing abstract landscape – such a wondrous ode to color and glow and light. What more do we need to understand the very essence of this scene?
Thank you so much, Brenda.
Your photo – which actually looks like a painting! – reflects “essence” to me because it feels fluid to me, undefinable, ungraspable, representing the “formless” nature within form…Maybe I’m reading too much into it 🙂 Buddhists call it our True Nature. Essence for me is also a little “cosmic” in nature, representing the infinitude of something, the stuff of stars kind of thing, or something like an inner lightness… I also like the list of words/phrases in your post, especially the Heart of something, the inner nature, and particularly “Is-ness.” That’s how I experience it too – the Is-ness of something, its Beingness…
Thanks for your great comment, Christine. You’ve added a new perspective that I love – the fluidness, because everything is in a constant state of flux. I’d love to be able to express that in my images.