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Plate 8 is a very dramatic photograph. The sky, landscape, tone, and mood of the photograph all contribute to the dramatic feel. This is a tough photograph to read. The graffiti on the boulders in the foreground, as well as the tourist road sinuously cutting its way down to the valley floor, and the dark shadows and cloud cover that seem to be moving across the sky and valley floor about to consume the entire landscape bring a sense of our relationship to nature. Not necessarily a good relationship either. When I took this photograph, the dark shadows from the clouds where moving toward me. At a point I felt helpless to avoid the blackness that would soon consume the rest of the valley. This, plus the sheer grandeur of the valley itself, made me feel helpless and small, as if my attempt to capture the moment would soon be thwarted by Mother Nature. Even the graffiti will one day be washed away. The landscape is constantly changing, and no matter how often or much we try to alter it, it will always return to a state of nature. The boulders are illuminated in the foreground by a small hole in the clouds not visible within the frame of the photograph. I believe this signifies that even things that are not of this world are capable of changing that landscape. This valley took thousands of years to form, and even as we speak it is changing. Nature does not need any help from us.

Plate 7 | Plate 8

Here again there is a big difference between the ‘Artists Reality’ and the ‘Photorealistic Reality.’ Why is this? Is it because we have been engrained with the idea the black and white photographs are inherently more dramatic and emotional? Or is it because the ‘Artists Reality’ more readably can create something that the ‘Photorealistic Reality’ cannot? In the case for Plates 7 and 8, Plate 8 being the ‘Artists Reality’, Plate 8 does something that Plate 7 cannot. Photographs are a means to connecting to the world, and when combined with the creativity, randomness, mood, and style of the artist, photographs like Plate 8 get at something that Plate 7 cannot.
The final examples I would like to use are two photographs taken in Yosemite National Park. More specifically it was taken of Half Dome across the valley from the top of North Dome, which is one of the most popular and most photographed destinations in the valley. Even though North Dome is not the most popular vantage point of Half Dome, look to Glacier Point for that, yet North Dome still receives many visitors. A photographer must strive to make his or her photograph unique. Plate 9 is a snapshot and there has been no attempt to alter the photograph at all. The first thing I notice when looking at this photograph, is the grey granite. The character of the entire Sierra Nevada mountain range is this hard, unforgiving, yet beautiful granite. Glaciers formed Yosemite Valley itself thousands of years ago and it was one of these that slowly carved Half Dome into the shape we see it today. Surprisingly trees hang on to the side of Half Domes sheer cliffs. The granite seems to be painted with different tones of grey and black. In the distance I can see the ridgeline of the Sierra Nevada still glazed with spring snow. A few clouds dot the otherwise open, but slightly hazy blue sky. Patches of snow on the top of Half Dome and hidden behind the trees, melts with the warm afternoon sun, staining the granite black. The framing of the photograph makes me wonder how deep the valley extends. I am left wondering about much in this photograph. Even though Half Dome is in the center of the frame, the photograph seems incomplete. Where the rest of the valley begins and ends?
I am biased to an extent because, as I mentioned before, many of the places in Yosemite have been over photographed to the point where it is hard to find them interesting anymore. While it may be interesting to someone who has not seen much of Yosemite, Plate 9 is an example of something over photographed. It is nonetheless an accurate representation of what is there, meaning this is close to what I saw on that day. I do not believe this photograph to have much meaning past being a representation of what is there.

Plate 9 | Plate 10

Plate 10 on the other hand provokes a different response in me. This photograph was taken a few minutes before Plate 9 in the same location, yet through various techniques, it ends up looking and feeling completely different. I see a giant black and grey stained block of granite that rises from a valley floor not able to be seen. It looks as if there was a catastrophic landslide that took half the dome to the valley floor. The trees look as if they have been charred from fire they are so dark. Deep in contrast to the trees is the rough granite; it looks hard and unforgiving. Infinite cracks and lines remind me of a face long weathered by the sun and wind. The granite has been stained by eons of water runoff from winter snow. Still, even in May, Half Dome is topped with a small bit of snow. The sky is an eruption of dark grey dotted by sparse clouds that cast deep shadows on the snow capped mountains in the background. The face of Half Dome looks like an artist’s canvas, almost like a Jackson Pollock canvas. It is as if black streaks were let to run down the face and have run together. The west face, which is the right slope from this vantage, looks as if it gently slopes off into the distance. The north face, which is directly visible, is a sheer cliff dropping thousands of feet to the valley floor.
This is a very powerful photograph. Its rich tones and raw blacks evoke a dark sense of just how powerful nature can be sometimes. Half Dome is nature in its raw destructive form. It reminds me, that even with all of our technological advances, our so-called progress, nature can neither be ignored nor can it be fully controlled. The dark sky is luminous; it feels as if it is hanging over me, ready to collapse. The sheer size of Half Dome makes me feel small, almost insignificant. I am nothing in comparison to the sheer rock face. It dwarfs me in every aspect. Even though Half Dome is one of the most photographed subjects in Yosemite, it is possible to make the view unique. This photograph leaps out at me and pulls me in. I suppose the old cliché may be true that things become distinguished, as they get older. Half Dome is one of the most majestic objects in the valley. Looking at the face, a story is told. Once deeply embedded in solid granite, the face has been exposed to light by immense weight of glaciers long melted. This print symbolizes the incalculable power of nature and how sometimes we are so separated from nature itself. Yet it is easy to feel connected, as I do, to this photograph. The north face of Half Dome is a kind of natural canvas holding in it the faces of everyone that has taken a long ponderous gaze at the majestic rock face.
The difference between Plate 9 and Plate 10 is significant. Through these last six examples I hope to have demonstrated an important difference between the ‘Photorealistic Reality’ and the ‘Artists Reality.’ Namely I have hoped to demonstrate that the ‘Artist’s Reality’ is much more complex because the artist manipulates the scene from the moment he or she sets up the tripod. The type of equipment, the film, the paper, the exposures, and dark room techniques all contribute to how the scene is manipulated by the artist and to the end result of this manipulation. Let us not forget what the artist himself contributes to this. Even the simplest thing as what kind of mood the artist is in on that day contributes to the end result. Sometimes, as Ansel Adams suggested, you have the end result already visualized in your mind. But in other cases the photographic process becomes much more organic, it takes on a life of its own. All of these factors combine into the truth.
As well as the factors listed above, the truth of the photograph is the meaning. Combined with how specifically the artist manipulates the photograph, and using these techniques, this is how the artist creates meaning in a photograph thus, if not creating, getting at, photographic truth. The six photographs described above, specifically Plates 6, 8, and 10, all have meaning. They get at something their ‘Photorealistic’ counterparts cannot, specifically meaning. The artist’s prints mean something to me because they reflect my truth. They reflect the place, but also something as simple as how I felt in that moment. Because of this it is possible for a photograph to not only include a realistic view of the world but it can also hold something much deeper to all of us. The print gets at something true, not just visually true, but something existentially true, i.e. something about human existence that we can all relate to. In other words, there is more going on than just mountains.
The photograph does this through me. I as the artist pour my creativity into the end result. I pour in things like social issues, personal moods, and how I see that place. By doing this it allows people to relate to the photograph and the place. The object being photographed is no longer just an object; it has become something else, filtered through me. It is this artistic filter that people can relate to more readily. Why? Because it is inevitable that, being human themselves, they will relate to something I do as the artist. If I provoke an emotional response in myself, it stands to reason that someone else may have an emotional response, if not necessarily the same one. Photographs are inextricably connected to the world, but they are also inextricably connected to us. The mood of a print is just as important to me as how well it is printed. It can be the mood of the print that is at the root of the emotional response one gets from the print and it is the emotional response that can be at the root of truth.
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 too 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.

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