Photographing From The Heart

"Photographs - at least good ones - are always about ideas; without ideas photographs are merely images. For an image to be idealess is as emasculating as a paragraph without a thought". (Brooks Jensen in 'Letting Go of the Camera')

Two Seats – Saltburn, England (Zero Image Pinhole Camera)
Whenever I’m running photographic workshops I’m constantly encouraging the participants to consider why they are taking a photograph - what is it that's attracting them to a particular subject and importantly, what is the idea, the concept behind it? I believe that there has to be a reason to take a photograph.
What I particularly urge photographers to do is to photograph what they feel as much, if not more, than what they see. At the same time I’m quick to acknowledge that this is one of the biggest challenges any photographer faces. It’s easy to get lured into taking a photograph just for it’s visual appeal. And that’s OK but I’ve found that the images that have the greatest lasting impact on the...