Gerald Rowles on Fstoppers

rowlesfineartphotography.com

As a clinical neuropsychologist I was trained in both the physiological and interpretive aspects of human experience - the physical sensors and the interpretive sensation that we bring to our experiences.

In more than thirty years of self-training in photography it struck me that clinical neuropsychology is an apt metaphor for the photographer and their camera. More than ever in the digital age, the camera is the limited, primitive equivalent of the human visual sensory organs - a mechanical sensor, with the photographer acting as the interpreter and expresser of the impression registered on that mechanical sensor.

Just as in the psychology of human personality, no two photographers bring exactly the same interpretation to the composition and processing. The range of human expression and experience, from coldly clinical, to pragmatic, to creative and dramatic - and sometimes a little crazy - is unique to each of us. For this reason, no photographer can stand in exactly the same spot, time, light and weather, with exactly the same equipment as did Ansel Adams and recreate an Ansel Adams photograph. They are not Ansel Adams and they cannot clone his sensory experiences and thought processes.

The photographic artist composes and processes a photograph in their uniquely personal way to retell their story and their sensation in the silence of a two-dimensional print to anyone who will listen.

If you hear it, and sense it, then the artful effort was successful.