Artist’s Statement

Photography supports memoirs, presents facts, records action, transmits to others beauty observed, and permits the creation of art without paint and brush.  The art is the element that goes deep - below the surface of the familiar - the element that makes one think or draws out a personal emotion.

Seeking that personal emotion is a challenge for the artist, regardless of the genre.  Because photography is formed from what is seen in real life in front of the lens, drawing out that emotion is difficult.  The painter and sculptor have the freedom to create what their minds have made of an image.  For a photographer to move from documentarian to artist is an incredible challenge, one that I face every time I press the shutter.

I want the experience of any one viewer of one of my photographed images to be unique within the context of their history and experience.  This means that the photograph must take the viewer beyond eye-catching composition, form, and/or colour and into the emotion that it invokes.  Individual emotions will vary, but if I can connect to one person through my photograph, I feel successful.

I feel a sense of satisfaction whenever I take the time to go out into the landscape and create art using the elements of nature that stir my senses.  The camera is the mechanism with which I record the art, but it is the image on paper that closes the loop and gives me the final gratification of creating something worthwhile.  I have learned that my best art is not captured by happenstance, but rather in a thought-out process from the initial sighting to the final printing.  This is a process that needs to be practised continuously to create an artistic outcome.  It often means waiting for the right light or returning to the same place many times to capture the feeling of the place.

Jack Blair, Cochrane, AB