Photography, faith and healing are not terms we would normally put together.  We would naturally associate photography with art for those with the “fancy cameras” or daily life for those with cell phones.  Faith is something we relegate to the Divine and spiritual world if that is something we acknowledge and healing is a science where doctors, nurses and other health care administrators work with the body to bring it to a place of well-being.  I can’t say that I have compartmentalized the three that much but more recently I have seen them work together in a most miraculous journey. 
 
            It began on Easter Sunday (April 4, 2021) after several days of labored breathing.  Jeff had been diagnosed with Covid 19 and was just about through with a mild case of it.  It was inevitable that I would get it too and we thought my case would be just as mild.  We learned later that my recent surgery most likely weakened my immune system’s ability to fight off the stronger effects of the virus which led to my trip to the ER that Easter Sunday.  I was x-rayed and told that I had both Covid and Pneumonia.  Treatment was to be sedated with a breathing tube.   When the doctor explained to me what was about to happen I just assumed this was the way an extreme case of Covid was treated.  It just had to be done, so “let’s do it”.  I did not realize the severity of this but that may have helped in the long run.  Photography and science joined forces in that first leg of the journey.  While my breathing was brought under control over the next week the second leg of the journey began.
 
            Many of you know I am a person of strong Christian faith.   When Jeff was informed that I was “the worst case of Covid” the doctor had ever seen and that I might not come home from the hospital (ever) he immediately started calling family and friends and asked them to pray.  Some knew the particulars of my condition.  Some didn’t.  They in turn called other friends, family, prayer chains, church people, and even several missionaries around the world.  There were literally hundreds of people praying for me and I believe the Lord heard those prayers for healing because when I should have died He breathed life back into me. When I successfully came off the ventilator without incident I was given a breathing mask (And I thought face masks were uncomfortable!).  At first I was unaware of the magnitude of my “success” but the more I learned about what was happening on my behalf beyond the hospital walls the more I knew Jesus had heard and answered those prayers with a resounding “Yes, I will heal her”.
 
            Although I wanted to take the oxygen mask off many times, I would remind myself of all those prayers being said on my behalf and tell myself the oxygen was restoring my damaged lungs with pure, clean air.  After 3-4 days with the mask I was given a breathing tube (which made the mask seem somewhat comfortable!).  Although I wanted to take that tubing out, I knew I needed to keep it on- so I did.  I would tell myself, “This is how they treat this condition, so you just have to do it.”  While the tubing and oxygen represented the practical treatment side of my recovery, the fact that I recovered at all was due solely to those prayers.  No one in the hospital ever expected me to survive when I was put on the ventilator, but those faithful prayers presented a different answer.  God hears and God answers and sometimes it’s exactly what we’ve prayed for.  When I finally did go home Jeff shared with me the number of people who had been praying for me.  It was overwhelming.  A day doesn’t go by now without me thanking the Lord for them.
 
            The third leg of my journey began when I was moved out of ICU to a regular hospital room.  For a staff that has been dealing with more death then success when a patient comes off the ventilator, I was a celebration equal to the Fourth of July and a miracle as profound as the parting of the Red Sea.  The view from my room in the ICU was actually quite nice.  There were a couple buildings but trees as well.  It was also facing east so I was able to watch the sunrise each morning.  The view from my regular room was not as nice.  It looked at the back of what appeared to be another industrial type building or a different hospital wing.  I was never able to figure it out, but it did get my creative juices stirred up.  After a day of starring out of the window at this unusual contraption sticking up off of that building I decided to attempt a few shots of it with my cell phone.  Photographer and author Jan Philips wrote in her book God is at Eye Level, “We get so caught up in the flurry of our lives that we forget the essential thing about art- that the act of creating is a healing gesture, as sacred as prayer, as essential to the spirit as food to the body.”  While I might not equate the need to create with the power of prayer as deeply as she does (I’d rather say they are two branches on the tree of our life), I do think that the photographer’s eye in me was another motivator which propelled me to let “Science” do its thing (I started feeling like a human pin cushion they tested my blood so often!), be thankful for the countless people praying on my behalf and to look beyond the hospital room as my temporary residence to a potential photographic subject.
 
            Photography, faith and the art of healing was about to come full circle the day Jeff dropped off my cell phone.  The first x-ray showed the severity of my condition.  Several others showed how I was improving at a steady pace.  Now, with cell phone camera in hand I started taking some very shaky pictures of my surroundings.  It was good to get my mind off of the breathing tubes, the endless run of TV shows (that I generally never watch) to keep myself preoccupied and to have short conversations with my family.  With my muscles as weak as they were I was unable to capture the pictures I saw in my mind, but I was still taking pictures and that encapsulated the third leg of my journey.  Photography diagnosed my condition but it also contributed to my healing by creating the goal to “get home and get shooting again”.  Some of those shaky shots were adequate enough to play around with in post-processing when I did go home. 
 
            On April 17th, after a successful physical therapy session without the oxygen on, the doctor showed up, listened to my breathing and announced that since I had everything lined up for home-care I could be released.  No one expected someone who arrived at the hospital in my condition to go home at all, let alone in 13 days!  When I consider the phrase “photography, faith and the art of healing” now it brings to mind three conclusions: 1) the doctors and nurses were the “artists” of healing, 2) many prayers lifted on my behalf were the artistry of faith which took my treatment to a miraculous conclusion and, 3) photography completed the cycle as a means to artistically tell the story through some interesting images when I finally put them into the “photo processing blender” as I like to call it.  It will take me some time to rebuild my strength so that I’m strong enough to do photo walks but for now finding subjects in my home is just fine with me!
 
            If you are one of the many people who prayed for me and sent well-wishes thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I can’t tell you what an impact this journey has made on my life and I truly appreciate you joining me as I continue to walk along it.
 
Ann H. LeFevre
https://www.annhlefevre.com; [email protected]; https://www.linkedin.com/in/annhlefevre; https://www.facebook.com/ann.h.lefevre

           
           Much has been said in recent months on how difficult lockdowns and safe havens have limited photographers.  Depending on your comfort level with masks and being around people a choice is made as to whether one will venture forth into the outdoors or stay put.  Each choice is valid and completely personal but what if your choice is not what you really want to do?  That is where a photographer may feel limited.  The walls of the home that once offered you comfort take on the feeling of confinement and restriction.

            I have dealt with limitations, especially physical ones, for several years now.  So the current situation of being housebound seems like nothing new to me.  But a webinar that I recently attended did point out to me that oftentimes, and especially in the Poconos, photography tends to be associated with the outdoors and lessons or talks are geared to that viewpoint.  Two amazing photographers were sharing their thoughts on “Contemplative Photography” which basically is a way to see photographs that are presenting themselves to you rather than looking for a shot you’ve predetermined in your mind that you must take.  It involves practices such as being aware of your surroundings, being in the moment and clearing away distractions, thinking abstractly, (i. e. using a soft focus instead of razor sharp accuracy), telling a story and not having an expectation of what you are going to take that day.  The examples they shared all emphasized one of these aspects and they were amazing but they were captured at places I may never get to- sand dunes in a desert, reflections in a river in a canyon, Autumn leaves on top of a mountain, and a beach in Hawaii.
 
            It would be easy to write off their knowledge and expertise by thinking, “Well, that was for outdoor photography so it doesn’t apply to me”, but that is not the way I think.  Instead I started to review in my mind pictures I’d captured around my house with those very principles in action.   True, it is much harder to clear out the list of “things I should and need to do” in the very environment they should and must be done in but it is possible!  It is harder to be “in the moment” when you’ve been in that same spot hundreds of times over the previous day, month or year.  It is a challenge to think about your home in the abstract or see a story in your furniture, cupboards, or dresser drawers.  But they are there!  It is easy to have a list of pictures you expect to capture in a foreign country or an iconic location such as Niagara Falls, but almost the reverse takes place in our house.  We are so used to thinking of our kitchen as mundane, our bookshelf as uninteresting and the laundry basket as boring.  But that is because we are LOOKING at them and not really SEEING them.  The contemplative practice that involves our decision to clear away distractions in our mind and to be in the moment of the place where we stand is just as important in the living room as it is on a path in the woods.

            My favorite place to start my day is in my living room.  Light spills into it from several directions; from above through the windows at the top of my cathedral ceiling, from behind through two small windows that flank the fireplace, and from the side through the picture window on the front of my house.  Light and shadow shift as the minutes go by with something new to see reflected on the walls in a very short span of time.  One morning I assigned myself the task of capturing a new “circle” shot for my on-line photo club.  Knowing that it would be easy to repeat something I’d photographed before, I decided to close my eyes for 2 minutes before I took the shot.  I took a few deep breaths and pushed aside the list of things I needed to accomplish that day, including the photography assignment!  There is always a point when I do this that I feel “settled” and a sense of calm takes hold of my soul.  It’s then when I know it’s time to open my eyes.  I’m ready to “see” the shot rather than look for it.  As I opened my eyes my gaze was directed toward a chest of drawers my father refinished years ago.  But not the dresser as a whole, just a portion of it where the knobs and inlay were balanced in harmony and forming a pattern of circles and lines.  I saw the picture and took it.

            Marcel Proust said, “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking landscapes, but in having new eyes.”  There are just as many photographs to discover in your home as there are outside.  The question is, “Will your eyes SEE them?”

Ann H. LeFevre
July 18, 2020
https://www.annhlefevre.com; [email protected]; https://www.linkedin.com/in/annhlefevre; https://www.facebook.com/ann.h.lefevre

            Jeff and I have very different ways of approaching vacations.  He likes to have no plans at all.  If he sleeps half the morning away, so be it!  I like things “somewhat” planned.  I like to see new things and new places so while I’m not up at the crack of dawn to get out and get going, I do like to have an idea of what I’d like to do that day and be doing it before noon especially if it involves picture taking (which it usually does!).  A friend of mine recently took a trip to India and Sri Lanka with a tour group that had the day so jam-packed with activities there was barely enough time to breathe.  She took some great pictures but most of the time she wished she had had more time to compose the shot and make it less “touristy”.  For photographers a vacation is more than just a getaway; it’s a chance to capture something in the camera that holds the essence of where we are and what we’re seeing.  That takes planning.
            Like vacations, photographic excursions- be they a walk around your yard or a trip to another country- take some mental preparation.  John Batdorff wrote, “Prior to any photographic journey I try to visualize what sort of images I’m hoping to achieve.  This mental shot list helps me create a plan of attack when an opportunity presents itself.  Visualization (not the spiritual kind!) is an excellent mental exercise and tool for composing an image.”  I found this to be true the other day.  I was in search of a picture that could illustrate the words “ice sculpture”.  Since I knew I wouldn’t be attending any weddings with icy swans surrounded by shrimp and cocktail sauce in the near future and I also knew the Winterfest celebration in Stroudsburg had come and gone, I was looking for a different way to capture sculpted ice.  I knew a particular spot up on Route 209 heading towards Milford where some amazing ice formations have appeared in past winters so I made a plan to visit that spot after I ran a few errands.  In my mind I started composing a shot or two, but on my way there, on a whim, I stopped at another spot with smaller, less impressive formations, and took a few shots.  It’s a good thing I did!  The spot I’d originally planned to shoot was virtually ice-less.  As I headed back home I was glad I’d listened to that little voice that said, “Stop and take a few shots, just in case.”  A key factor in the process of taking a photo is actually being aware of what you’re seeing, even if it isn’t initially what you set out to see.
            Freeman Patterson put it this way, “The photographer who observes his environment carefully, who lets his eyes linger on physical details, is feeding his imagination.”  When we take our cameras in hand with the purpose of finding a picture, planning ahead can be very helpful.  But when we get to our destination it is also important to actually view our surroundings.  Sometimes the picture we imagined taking is “not there” but another picture will be.  Patterson continues, “Photographers who want to see the world in new ways should be sensitive to chance.  They should encourage and cultivate it (their imagination) because it is only through chance that many new opportunities for visual development will occur.”  He defines this ability to imagine new shots when our initial idea falls through as “flexible thinking”.  How many of us have planned a vacation and expected to capture beautiful sunny day photographs while there only to arrive and find the weather is not about to cooperate with us?  Flexible thinking allows the photographer to reshape his expectations.  Of course everyone wants a landscape with a blue sky and sun kissed trees.  It’s a very traditional approach to that form of photography.  But what if it’s a cloudy day with a slight possibility of rain?  Flexible thinking asks, “This view is not usually photographed on a cloudy day.  What if I compose this shot in black and white instead?”  And voila- a dramatic view of stormy clouds over the mountains is born.
            So to paraphrase Hamlet, “To plan or not to plan?  That is the question!”  The answer probably lies somewhere in between yes, and no.  Yes, it’s great to have a plan, an idea, a goal to accomplish when you know you will be taking pictures.  It doesn’t hurt visualize or plan pictures ahead of time.  But no if you are locked into that plan so deeply that you miss whatever opportunity presents itself when the goal cannot be achieved.  If I hadn’t stopped at the first ice formations when I saw them, I would not have gotten an ice picture at all.  Did it match the picture I had in mind?  No.  Did it help me accomplish my goal?  Yes.  While it is not as disappointing as being on vacation with lousy weather, it is an applicable illustration.  And it might just be a great illustration for life too!
 
https://www.annhlefevre.com; [email protected]; https://www.linkedin.com/in/annhlefevre; https://www.facebook.com/ann.h.lefevre

            Vivian Maier (2/1/1926-4/21/2009) lived and worked in obscurity as a nanny in Chicago’s North Shore taking over 150,000 photographs in her spare time and never printing most of them.  But in 2008 a Chicago based collector purchased some boxes and suitcases containing her negatives and prints, printed a small portion of them and subsequently posted them on Flickr.  They contained mostly street shots of Chicago and New York in the 1940’s and 50’s, some including Vivian herself and others capturing live as it was in those days.   The pictures went virtually unnoticed until one year later another collector who’d also bought some of her negatives and prints posted them on his blog and added a link to the Flickr account and suddenly the world could not get enough of Vivian Maier.  Sadly Maier had passed away a few months before literally penniless.  The cache of her work had been in a storage locker which was auctioned off when she could not keep up with the payments.  One wonders if she would have continued on in obscurity had not her financial woes forced the sale of her belongings.  Sadly, she never knew how many people would connect with the pictures she took.
            The story of Vivian Maier fascinates me.  How could such an avid photographer never print her pictures?  True, 150,000 photos might be a bit cost prohibitive!  But apparently she rarely printed any of them.  Wouldn’t you want to print maybe one or two once the negative had been developed?  But her photographic idiosyncrasy is not much different from the thousands of photos we store digitally today.  It started me thinking of how many pictures I’ve got stored on CD’s, flash drives, on SD cards and in my computer.  The total may not reach the magnitude of Maier’s negatives, but by the time I die, it might be close! 
            There are several albums and boxes in my home that store family photos of several generations of my forefathers and significant people in my life.  They include my great grandparents on their honeymoon at Niagara Falls, my father serving in the Ski Troops in Colorado during WWII, my grandmother playing a mandolin on a roof top with some of her friends, my uncle with my mother just before he set sail with the Navy, my parents on their wedding day and a photo which appeared in the local paper when my cousins, sisters and I had one person in each grade of the elementary school.  There is something wonderful in feeling those pictures between my fingers, looking at the moments they capture, and feeling the connection I have with the people in them.
            When we were raising our own family, the wonderful world of digital photography had not been invented yet.  I have a collection of photos documenting our sons’ birthday parties, sports events, holidays, the family vacations we took, and even the way they played with their toys. Mixed in amongst the family history my eye for patterns, bits and bobs, rusty things and nature was also developing and there are pictures to prove that as well.  But it has become less of a habit for me to print out pictures of my grandchildren.  Granted I do take advantage of those on-line places where you can put your digital photos into a book.  But there is something deep inside of me that wonders if future generations will have the same feelings as I do when I hold those faded but treasured photos in my hand when they look at those books in theirs.
            There is something about a tangible print that makes history tangible too.  It’s no longer something that happened “way back when”.  It’s a part of who I am.  It’s part of my story.  I think the stories attached to those photos also become more real when there is some sort of physical documentation of them.  You can flip through a photo album and see a picture and say, “Oh, I remember that car!  We drove half way across the country in it in 1963,” or “That was my favorite doll when I was 6.  I hardly let her out of my sight.”  Friends are not forgotten, family legacies are continued, special places remain etched in our memory, all when we hold those snapshots in our hands. 
            So maybe the next time one of those photo sites offers me 100 free prints, I’ll take them up on it and start a collection of my own.   And maybe someday my great great granddaughter will hold them in her hands and say, “My great great grandmother took this picture.  The story goes she was never without a camera.  Judging from all the pictures we have that she took, that must be true!  And now I know where my love of photography comes from.”
Ann H. LeFevre, January 29, 2019
https://www.annhlefevre.com; [email protected]; https://www.linkedin.com/in/annhlefevre; https://www.facebook.com/ann.h.lefevre

 
           The year was 1975.  A friend and I had driven to upper New York State to see several friends of ours who were working as camp counselors that summer.  They were in between sessions and had gotten the approval of the camp director for us to come and visit for a week end.  The first evening of our visit found us sitting in the lounge of the dining hall after dinner and duties were done to hear a reading from The Chronicles of Narnia.  Now, one would not think of this as an activity college students would want to take part in (especially on a weekend!), but when a Master Storyteller reads a story- people of all ages will stop and listen!  The director’s wife was a story teller of that caliber and she read the book as if we were there in Narnia right along with the main characters.  We moved through the story and lived the adventure just as those characters did all through the power of her words.  It was magical.
            Most people associate a story with the written word.  But is that the only way you can tell a story?  Could a picture tell a story too?  The answer of course is yes.  In fact it could be argued that some of the best pictures are those that not only evoke a strong emotional response from the viewer but ones which also contain a narrative about the subject that enables the viewer to “read the story” as they look at the picture.  Battle-weary soldiers lift a tattered flag above their heads.  A strong leader is caught in a quiet moment pondering the gravity of the times.  A parent and a child gaze in wonder at a caterpillar crawling on the ground.  Pictures most definitely tell “a story” when there are people involved.  But not every picture has a human element.  In those cases the story of a picture does not always start with “Once upon a time” as its opening dialogue.  It may not end with “And they lived happily ever after” either.  But it does capture a scene, a subject, or even an idea with visual elements such as line, shape, texture or color which pulls the story together and invites the viewer to be a part of it.
            It is harder to see “the story” in an abstract shot, but every photo bears the same elements of a good story:  a main character or an ensemble of them (even if that character is an inanimate object, a pattern or colors splashed across the image), suspense, humor, surprise or some form of drama (like stormy clouds or clashing colors) and resolve (a place where the eyes rest or leave the picture plane).  The pictures which bear a human element are obviously the easiest to see stories in.  Good pictorial story tellers use the body language, gestures, and expressions of people in the picture to tell the viewer what’s going on and capture moments which make the story come alive.  It is critical though for the photographer to show an interest in the subject otherwise the people looking at your photograph will be disinterested in it as well.  That is to say, the viewer must see WHY we took the picture and even more so when the human element is not present.  Brenda Tharp and Jed Manwaring noted in Extraordinary Everyday Photography, “If you’re caught up in your own world when you go out the door, you’ll miss many good photo opportunities.  Get outside of yourself, become a life watcher, and celebrate the moments that make life the precious experience it is”.  “Life Watching” is all about observing “the stories” that are happening around you in the world of photography- and especially when those stories go beyond the human realm.  Did you see that flower, that building, those colors, that rock?  Our eyes direct us to stories every day.  Our cameras help us tell it.
            But to tell stories you must first find them.  You must go out and be a part of life or observe life where you are in that moment.  The human stories always happen wherever there is a hub of activity: markets, festivals, carnivals, parades, on the street, in the home, wherever life is being lived.  The non-human stories may not be as obvious but they too are waiting to be told.  You might be a photographer who is not be interested in photographing people, but the same ability to capture a moment and tell a story can be applied to photographing wildlife and birds.  Stories can also be told through the emotions brought out by a beautiful vista, the contrast of light and shadow, the nostalgia of a vintage telephone, the grandeur of a cathedral, or the imagination conjured up by an abstract image in the same way we see shapes in the clouds.  Finding the story is dependent on your willingness to SEE; to keep your eyes open and aware of what is taking place in your surroundings- human or otherwise.  Storytellers are “seers” who then tell others about what they’ve seen.  Photographers see stories too, and when we do, we are compelled to tell it.  We may not hold a pen to paper, a book in our hands, or a microphone to our mouths but we tell stories with each click of the shutter.  What stories will you see today?  How will your camera help you to tell them?

https://www.annhlefevre.com; [email protected]; https://www.linkedin.com/in/annhlefevre; https://www.facebook.com/ann.h.lefevre

    
      I saw a feed on Facebook recently, posted by a friend, which asked her followers where they were or what they were doing when they received the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated.  The question obviously dated her and those who responded, but it got me thinking about those significant events in each generation that pinpoints a certain day, a certain month, a moment when life irrevocably changed for better or worse.  This not only happens in epochs and eras, it happens in personal ways too.   Some of them are captured in a picture- your first car, blowing out birthday candles at a party, your date for the Prom, time spent with at a favorite place or with a best friend; each of these moments take hold in your life story and define who you are in a deep and enduring way.  They are benchmarks on the timeline of your life and each moment is captured forever in your memory thanks to the picture in your hand.
 
          Photographers are moment stealers.  Whether on film or in a digital file with the press of a button they freeze a moment and make it theirs in a picture.  The thoughtful photographer will do this with uttermost care.  They recognize the moment they are capturing is precious even if it is something as simple as feeding a flock of greedy seagulls on a blustery winter’s day.  The “Happy Snapper” shoots haphazardly, wondering if they’ll get “anything good”.  But for those who treasure the ability to preserve for posterity a moment that was significant to someone, capturing the moment becomes a visual trophy of success.  It is something that is gained by “being at the right place, at the right time”, studying and calculating the light to get the perfect shot, or by waiting patiently to see the moment unfold.
 
          Life has a way of causing us to forget how precious moments are until someone asks the question, “Where were you when…”, or we are riffling through a pile of papers and we stumble on a long forgotten photo which causes us to pause and think about “the moment”.  Should “capturing the moment” only pertain to putting it on film or in a digital file?  I’m starting to think that every moment is special, even if I don’t have a camera in my hands.  But for the times when I do capture “that moment”, moments have become even more treasured because they are now preserved forever thanks to the connection of my finger to the shutter.

Ann H. LeFevre
https://www.annhlefevre.com; [email protected]; https://www.linkedin.com/in/annhlefevre; https://www.facebook.com/ann.h.lefevre

     
I remember in my grade-school years being fascinated by the stories of the great explorers.  I tried to imagine what it would have been like to sail across an uncharted ocean, to venture into an undocumented land not knowing what kind of plants, animals or even people one might find there.  The stories of the trappers who figured out the veins of rivers in North America or sailors who figured out the currents of the seven seas and used them to delve deeper into these mysterious places enthralled me.  Why was I so fascinated by these daring figures?  I think it was because I was a particularly timid child who preferred to take an adventure in a book rather than climb a tree.  But I did have my moments such as when I explored the attic of my grandmother’s house, stomach all a-flutter while climbing those dimly lit stairs to discover long-forgotten boxes and furniture covered in years of dust.  What a find!

The list of explorers is endless: Daniel Boone, Christopher Columbus, Roald Amundsen (South Pole), Robert Peary (North Pole), Henry Hudson, Francis Drake, Neil Armstrong, Coronado, Ponce de Leon, Ferdinand Magellan, James Cook, Marco Polo, and more.   And this list doesn’t include the arts and sciences!  There is something inside of humankind that drives us to want to know more; to see something that no one else has seen before, to go to a place where no one has been before, express ourselves in a new and unique way, or discover what makes something “tick”.  That drive or passion documented the movement of the sun, moon and stars and brought about the first step on the moon, sent probes into the farthest reaches of space, developed ways in which one could reach the depths of the ocean, see the inner workings of cells, make a permanent image on a slip of paper and create music with wood and wire.

Photographers are explorers of the visual kind.  At the click of a setting or twist of a lens we are able to take off on an adventure.  We walk into new and mysterious worlds with the camera as our sexton and compass in order to discover the nuances of both the magnificent and the minute.  Through our lens leaves become road maps, mushroom gills become white waves of milk, landscapes change from mountains and coastlines to vistas of light and shadow, and portraits reveal the hidden depths in someone’s personality.  There is nothing excluded from our desire to seek and discover something we’ve never seen before or to see something mundane in a new and unusual light thanks to the capabilities of our camera and the lens we put on the front of it.

What compels a photographer to explore the world on film or in the digital realm; to go places others have not or to look at the world from a different angle?  I think it is the same sense of curiosity, adventure and discovery as that of any other explorer.  What’s around the corner?  Who is that?  What’s underneath this?  What’s in there?    Has anyone seen this before?  Each time we pick up the camera it is an invitation to join the great adventurers of the past, to ask the questions they asked, to travel in their creative footsteps and to reveal our discoveries in print or on line.  We may not always think of our camera in terms of a telescope or microscope, but oftentimes they are.  We may not see ourselves playing the role of a Thomas Edison or Pablo Picasso, but many times we are!  Like them we walk into worlds with our curiosity and our camera and the discoveries we make are as endless as the explorers who’ve gone before.
 
Ann H. LeFevre
June 1, 2018

     Graffiti- you either like it or you don’t.  When it’s painted on a wall by permission or as part of a beautification project, it’s called art.  But if it’s unwelcomed and splattered across an abandoned and run-down building, it’s an eyesore.  However in either case, it captures many a photographer’s eye! Quite frequently the graffiti is an overblown representation of a name; an individual or a gang who’s decided that this place is part of the territory that belongs to them.  The names are plastered on anything that will take spray paint: buses, railcars, traffic light poles, barricades, mailboxes, buildings- all become a platform of proclamation; a canvas of confession that someone was there and they left their mark. 
 
     What is this need that we have which compels us to make sure our name is known, that we must be identified or associated with the object which bears our name?  Is it that our culture is so busy, rushed and disconnected that we feel forgotten and isolated so our name is an attempt to prove we’re actually here?  Or are we so unsure of our own unique viewpoint we must plaster our name across whatever we produce to be sure whoever sees it will know it’s ours?  Do we think our “masterpiece” is so masterful that it will be stolen and used for massive profits without our knowing it?  Or do we simply think our signature adds to the beauty of our creative output?  I often consider these cosmic questions when I see a photo that bears a watermark that takes up a good portion of the picture.
 
    Watermarks are quite common now.  In many cases they appear to be placed on photos like sprinkles on a dish of ice cream, as if they add to the sweetness of the photographer’s success.  Being a part of two photo communities I see them used by a number of photographers with a variety of skill levels and in a variety of sizes.  Like graffiti is to the fellow with spray paint in hand, to a photographer they are a testament of ownership.  This is my territory; this is my photo.  But are they necessary?  If I stand in front of a monochrome photo which depicts a vast landscape with a bold contrast between the areas of light and shadow falling across sweeping, majestic mountains in the distance and the twisted remains of a tree in the foreground there is no question who took this photo.  Yet there is no watermark.  If I’m looking through the pages of a magazine and a see a portrait of a popular actor gazing confidently at the camera in a minimalist setting with an attitude which exudes their personality, I know who took the photo.  Yet there is no watermark.  Their photos are not signed or stamped and yet everyone knows an Ansel Adams landscape and or a portrait shot by Annie Leibovitz.  Their unique perspective is their watermark so no names are necessary.
 
     Shouldn’t my photography speak in the same way?  Although I may not be exhibiting in galleries in NYC or taking portraits of high profile clients, when someone looks at my pictures hanging on a wall I do believe they should be able to say, “I know who took that!” and I’m pleased to say it has happened a few times.  I may be ruffling a few feathers here, but a signature stuck in a blank area of a picture or those cumbersome watermarks spread across an image ruin a picture for me.  Dare I say that in some way a signature plastered on a picture is much like the graffiti of a person’s name plastered on a wall?  Is it our need to be recognized that we are driven to insert our name into a picture?  Do we really think in today’s high-tech photo-processing world that we are protecting our image from photo thieves when we override the picture with an elaborate rendition of our initials?  For me they are spoilers and an indication that you’d rather I look at your name than the art you’ve produced.  You may agree or disagree with me, but like the graffiti that inspired these musings, you will most certainly have an opinion about it!
 
     I remember standing in front of a painting by Pierre Auguste Renoir in a museum once captivated by its color.  It depicted a couple dancing and was almost larger than life-size yet the artist’s signature wasn’t even the length of my pinky finger.  With such a large painting I’d expected the signature to be large as well.  Renoir knew his style was distinct.  His way of painting was unmistakably his.  Shouldn’t my photographs be like that?  Isn’t that what sets Adams and Leibovitz apart from the crowd?  The mark they make is in the way they depict what they see, not in the way they sign their pieces.  They draw attention to their subject and not their name.  That is the kind of mark I want to leave on my photographs as well.
 
Ann H. LeFevre
June 28, 2018

            It is one of the foundational elements of nature.  Some believe it is contained within everything on Earth.  Others believe it was the first thing created at the start of the universe as we know it.  Whatever your religious belief or your understanding of nature, there is no argument that without it photography would not exist.  The mere name of the craft we pursue is based on it.  The word photography is a compound of two Greek words: phos for light (as in phosphorescent) and graphe (gra-fay) meaning “to write”.  In essence every picture we take is the process of writing with light.
            Although some may think of photography as a modern invention there are some hints in antiquity that men dabbled with the idea that images could be projected on to light sensitive materials to produce a picture but keeping a permanent record of that image didn’t seem to be a concern.  The first images printed with the attempt at making them permanent were made by Thomas Wedgewood around 1800 but the “photograms” he produced did not last.  The first successful fixed images were made by Nicephore Niepce but they required at least 8 hours and up to several days of exposure in the camera in order to produce a finished print and the results were very crude.  The first man to accomplish a more practical process and product was Louis Daguerre.  The daguerreotype required only minutes of exposure in the camera and the pictures were clear with fine details.  “Light Writing” took off from there with the advent of photographic paper, reduced exposure time, rolls of film, and cameras designed specifically for amateurs to use.  The introduction of digital cameras and then the addition of cameras into “smart phones” have once again revitalized photography so that what used to take days to produce in Niepce’s time is now taken and almost instantaneously posted on the world-wide web.  As science learns more about light and its properties it makes me wonder what the next photographic innovation will be.
            While the basic principal of photography is writing with light, some forms of photography take that to a very literal degree and I confess I’ve become enamored with them!  From artistic twirls of light sabers and children’s toys to the flashy spirals of burning steel wool, the art of painting a picture in the dark night with a vibrant light source is becoming a desired photo opp for me.  And I’ll enlist help to produce them from anyone who’s willing to give it a whirl.  So it’s no surprise that when my grandchildren visited recently that we ended up in the backyard with a bunch of gadgets and flashy lights to see what we could come up with.  It’s not the first time I’ve turned my grandchildren into light writing accomplices.  In fact, four out of five have all had fun playing in the dark with Grammy and her camera.  And it’s not surprising that all this history and light writing has gotten me thinking about how my own personal history is entwined with the history of photography at large thanks to this sub-genre of photographic styles.
            I never really think much about being a part of history when I carry my camera out of the house in search of a picture.  I get a sense of it though when I pull out the pictures of my ancestors recorded on tintypes or the collection of large square negatives I have from the old cameras where the photographer disappeared under a large curtain when taking the picture.  I look at them and realize that history, both personal and photographic, is recorded there.  I also feel that historic connection when I look at pictures of my own parents with camera in hand and then compare them to my own (silly) “selfies” that include my camera or the photos of my grandchildren in action with their cameras.  Unlike the twirls and spirals we create with flashlights and steel wool that leave an imprint of their momentary existence, the pictures in my hand seem more permanent because of the family legacy they represent.
            We all understand the power of light.  All it takes is one tiny candle and a dark room seems warmer and less threatening when it is lit.  We love the sun all the more after a string of gloomy and cloudy days or when it rises after a dark, stormy night.  In photography we try to master it; to understand the nuances it is producing on our subject, to strike a balance of it within our composition so that our picture is neither under or over exposed.  We want to write with our cameras the legacy of a moment, a fleeting view that captured our attention, a small piece of our personal history.  In essence we write in light, “I saw this and it moved me to take this picture” or “This is meaningful to me”.  And little do we think that someday a future generation might look at those images and say, “My great, great grandmother took this picture.”  But the truth is we are a point on the timeline of photography, in both the broadest scope and the most personal sense, by the mere fact that with the latest generation of photographic equipment in our hands, we continue the history of writing with light each time we take a picture.

            They say a picture’s worth a thousand words.  They also say the camera never lies.  But is that really true?  What if the thousand words are based on limited vision or some sort of photographic manipulation?  During my high school years we lived down the street from a professional photographer.  He had just garnered some acclaim for photographing the “I Love New York” advertising campaign’s iconic apple.  When you looked at that picture, you could easily believe it was the most perfect apple in the world and be convinced that it came off the tree looking like that.  But our neighbor revealed to us it was actually 5 apples which had been pieced together with glue, staples and toothpicks and then airbrushed to smooth out the seams when the photo was printed.  It appears the thousand words attached to that apple were more about illusion and masterful print techniques than they were about apples grown in New York and one’s admiration of the state (and in the pre-digital age of photography too!).
            I have a photograph hanging on my wall which I took on a beach during a trip to Cape Cod.  In the picture a thick bank of fog is moving across the background while in the foreground the wind has combed the dune grasses up against the sand and one of those barrier fences meant to keep people off of the dunes.  Many have commented that the detail of each blade of grass reminds them of an Andrew Wyeth painting.  I am by no means as talented as the master but it is a masterful picture in a way.  To me the picture represents the ability we have as photographers to make a scene appear better than it really was.  For what my viewers don’t know is that the bank of fog is hiding something.  While they see a pristine beach, I know what the fog erased- two huge satellite dishes and a stone tower which an eccentric millionaire bought and moved to his estate on the Massachusetts coastline.   If the people who look at this picture could see what was behind the fog, I am sure they would have a different opinion on how beautiful this view is.  For me the thousand words of this picture are about illusion and the art of manipulation too but my viewers would probably use different words.
            I also have a collection of pictures taken at LeFevre family gatherings.  In each of those pictures we are smiling and enjoying each other’s company.  The ones of my brother-in-law Scott are generally capturing him entertaining us with his creativity and crazy antics.  He’s smiling and having a great time.  But Scott had the ability to manipulate his appearance just as easily as a camera can manipulate a scene or post-processing can manipulate a subject’s flaws.  In spite of the smiles and happy moments caught by the camera, it never captured what was going on inside Scott.  We lost him to suicide in 2014.  A picture is worth a thousand words?  Yes.  The camera never lies?  No.  The camera always lies, even when the picture is for the most part realistic.
            I remember as a young parent being interested in learning about the best ways to encourage and help your child to flourish and grow.  One particular expert emphasized that negative words would encourage negative behavior, but positive words would build self-esteem and reap all sorts of benefits.  Needless to say positive words were spoken quite frequently in our home!  If a picture is worth a thousand words, what kind of words do we want to portray in that picture, even if there is some illusion behind its production?  True, the camera will manipulate the image somewhat virtually by the direction we point the lens.  True, the image can be doctored or improved by post-processing or through HDR.  True, the camera will not capture what lies beneath a smiling face.  But it is equally true that images can and do evoke a response from those who view it.
            Every serious photographer knows their picture will have some sort of impact on the person who views it; that it will draw out some sort of emotional response.  I sat through a presentation once in which the speaker applied the Gestalt Theory of Perception to photography.  It was a thought provoking lecture in that the two components of how a person reacts to what they are seeing when looking at their world at large, studium and punctum, applied extremely well to how a person reacts when they look at a picture on a small scale.  Studium is the components in a view, i. e. picture, that cause a positive response such as, “That’s pretty!”  Punctum is the components that go deeper.  It is the “Wow!” factor of a photo that evokes a strong emotional response from the viewer and that response can be either positive or negative.  The Gestalt theory begs the question, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, and the viewer is the one who composes them by how they react to the image, what kinds of words do I want them to write?”  The thought that the camera can lie is a sobering reminder that the camera is also a powerful pen in the hands of a photographer.