The root of truth more specifically is the meaning one gets from the photograph. Photographs have different meanings, and people have different meanings for them. The truth is different for every artist. According to Jerry Thompson, the truth for Walker Evans, one of the pioneers of photography, was to project his own person through the photograph. Thompson goes on to say that the photographs show his (Walker's) view of things, and this is how artists want you to view the world, through photographs. (Thompson pg. 38) My truth is slightly different, but it is clear that the truth is the meaning. The artist's truth is the meaning he wants to express and the viewer to feel. I agree with most of this description of truth. I do not agree with wanting the viewer to see the world in a certain way. I put the truth into the photograph and I control what you see. If you were to see exactly what I saw, I think the photograph would lose meaning. A world where we all saw things the same way would take away from the creativity and uniqueness of art.
What is my truth? I take photographs, not just to go to a place and represent it, but to set a mood, pour my heart and soul into that print, see what the result is, and hopefully in the end provoke an emotional response. I do not take postcard prints. There has never been any point and shoot photography in my life, there is not room for it. I set out to find something, something that many of us are looking for. I try to find a way of dealing with our existence, death, and where we are in the world; this is my truth, my meaning. The things that I take photographs of are shaped by my experience. I have a sense of what experience means, but I want to define it and alter it, reinforce the meaning that I want to convey. I do this by representing the seen world that we can all relate to, and subtly, sometimes not, conveying what I want to express.
The best photographers are the ones who have not only mastered their craft, but do not just represent something for what it is. They actively pursue a kind of experience that goes far beyond just representing the landscape. They strive to express their truth through representation of the landscape and the inner most workings of the human experience. By thought provoking emotionally rooted photographs, photographers can successfully get at the human experience. Ansel Adams was a master of representing the landscape, but he would outdo this mastery in conveying truth. Plate 4 is perhaps the best photograph I have ever seen, it is a true masterpiece. It successfully gets at truth and meaning.
Adams was perhaps my most influential photographer. It was his work that first inspired me to develop this idea of truth and meaning. One photograph in particular is the best example I know of that promotes these ideas. Plate 4 was the photograph that actually inspired me to get into photography in the first place. There is no finer example of truth and meaning that I know of. Adams was a master at creating and defining a new landscape. Plate 4 is not what the landscape looks like when you stand there. Adams wanted to successfully represent the landscape, but also to get at something else. His photography is a tool for creating emotional responses and issues of existence.
Long before I went and saw this spot where Plate 4 was taken, I had a connection to it because of this print. The first thing I noticed about Plate 4 was the mountains. The clouds seem to be looming in the small valleys, hugging the ground. If one did not know better, he might mistake them for some lush coastal mountains, but the eastside of the Sierra Nevada range is extremely dry, almost desert like in its precipitation. Mount Williamson and its foothills look like natural pyramids. The mountains give way to a desolate valley, strewn with rocks left long ago by retreating glaciers. The rocks stretch into the distance looking as if they go directly to the mountains base. The rocks themselves look as big as Volkswagens Bugs. Small patches of vegetation cling to life in the harsh environment in-between the large chunks of granite. Sections of decomposed granite weave their way through the rock like trials. Three quarters of the sky is clear with what looks like late afternoon sun. The upper right-hand corner of the photograph is dark with an approaching storm. It casts a deep shadow onto part of the landscape creating what looks like beams of intense sun. It seems only a matter of time before the clouds cover the entire sky; their pursuit of darkness is rapid with approach.
In my final, and perhaps ultimate, example of truth and meaning, Plate 4 will be at the center. Photography can connect us to the landscape but it is the photographer that makes it possible for the landscape to come alive. The photographer is responsible for connecting the photograph to us; depending on how he does will dictate to the degree we are connected to the photograph. I am fully connected to Plate 4. This photograph is a struggle between the light and the shadow. In the right hand corner you can just glance at the ominous clouds moving in to cast their shadow on the landscape. The clouds roll in fast over the Sierra Nevada mountain range into Owens Valley where they cast their shadow. In Plate 4, the rocks which stretch into the distance are broken off from the mountains by powerful glaciers, symbolize us. We are the rocks, left to the will of what nature has in store for us.
The meaning I give Plate 4 is complicated. To me it symbolizes a struggle of our relationship with death and we, as the rocks, are helpless to combat this. The rocks once came from a much larger mass of stone, just as we came from the earth and eventually we will waste away, just as the rocks are going to subside into the place where we once came from, only to eventually emerge as something different. This photograph gets at the meaning of my existence by showing our struggle between life and death. This photograph shows me that you can do nothing to change the fact that one day you will die, so one must inevitably accept this and begin to live without the fear of this inevitability. We are the rocks and the shadow is coming to shroud us from life. The mountains symbolize a barrier to another existence we have not yet reached. The emotional response I have viewing this photograph is frightening. At first it makes me fear death, but the longer I look at it, the more hopeful and comfortable I become with the idea of death.
How does it do this? I see this photograph as very symbolic in its portrayal of the landscape. The photograph not only represents a place, but also a moment in time. The moment in time is obviously less permanent than the place. I argue the moment in time is not separate from the landscape, as may have been implied. Time changes the landscape from moment to moment, not in the blink of an eye in most cases, but in some way the landscape is different. What can change in the blink of an eye regarding Plate 4 is the sky. The sky is part of the landscape and can change much more rapidly than mountains eroding for example. The sky sets the mood of this print, without it would not be complete. If for example, the sky was devoid of clouds, it would be an impressive print, but it would not be this print. All the parts of this print are equally important; you cannot have one without the other.
In time we as beings change, even moment to moment we change. This photograph reminds me of this fragility of the moment. It reminds me that in an instant, the moment can be gone. Plate 4 is a capturing of the moment as well as the landscape. It is from the inevitable passage of time, that I fear the fact that one day, there may be no more time left; I will, at some point, meet death. This window into this moment under Mount Williamson is a reminder of the fact that the moment will soon be gone, and when enough time passes, the landscape will be greatly changed. This is true of my life as well; moment to moment I am different in some way. I am ageing, gaining new experiences, and feeling the passage of time. Like the landscape, the change is gradual, but in some cases, like the approaching storm in Plate 4, there comes an event that changes the face of the landscape. In my case it would not be a storm, but the approach of death. I fear this approach of death. I cope with this fear by looking deep into the landscape and coming to one inescapable conclusion: I cannot prevent the passage of time. If I cannot do anything to prevent time from moving forward, what good would it do to have fear of the moment? I also realize that even though a storm may change the landscape, it will always be there in one form or another. It is only in the acceptance of my own death, that I will begin to relinquish my fear of it. Plate 4 makes me realize that in an instant everything can change just like the capturing of the landscape can. This is what this photograph means to me.
In concluding this essay, I hope to have demonstrated just how powerful a tool the photograph can sometimes be. It does not necessarily have to get at ones existence in every case, but the good photographer and photographs will provoke something in you, whether it is a simple emotion or a complex idea. Plate 4 is a beautiful photograph, I believe it to be the most beautiful I have ever seen. It also shows me how powerful a tool the camera can be in the hands of a photographer. In the right hands, the photograph can be a weapon against hate, it can show ones relationship toward death, and can be a gateway of meaning that eventually leads to the truth of one's existence. I take photographs because of this. It is my goal to portray not only a beautiful landscape in my photography but to also open a door, as Ansel Adams did, into an existential realm where existence itself is contemplated.