Beyond Reality

        Be bold.  Can photographs tell a real story? Can they match up with the other artistic mediums?  Yes! Photography is the most powerful and dynamic form of art known to mankind.  

We have all known that the earth is part of the solar system for some time; we had seen artists’ renditions of that imagined sight for more than fifty years, but when we saw that first photograph of our earth floating in space, the earth changed, and we changed. The earth could never be the same earth again.  

Artists, poets and writers introduced us to the pleasures and joys of war for countless generations, and we loved it.  Then Mathew Brady brought us some bad news, and war has gone down hill ever since.  

We all know about how many children die of starvation every day, and we feel sorry for them.  But when we see Kevin Carter’s incredible photo of the starving Sudanese child, covered with flies, collapsing to the ground, still crawling in the dirt, completely abandoned except for his last earthly companion: a huge vulture, the size of the child, walking behind him, watching, waiting.  We have been told that one picture could take ten thousand words to explain; here’s one that would take ten million years to explain.  And you don’t even have to look, all it takes is a quick glance, and you can’t ever be the same again as you were before you saw that.  Yes, photography can be too powerful.  

The Wizard, Ansel Adams, took us to another planet - the most beautiful place in the universe!  “Where are we?” we asked him.  He pushed his glasses up on his forehead, smiled, wiped his hands on his apron, and said:  “Welcome home.”

You will encounter other artists out on the trail.  When you set up your tripod, be kind, be quiet, and be sensitive.  The painter, you may see out there is dabbing, looking for realism; the writer is searching for ten thousand words.  You hold realism and ten thousand words in your hands, and you are not going to stop there. 

Page 41 of the book "Methods and Procedures of Outdoor Photography"  by John Womack. Available from author at johnhwomack@gmail.com  $10 + postage.  

Last summer, the old man, who owned these trees
was sitting on his riding lawnmower.
He watched as his trees were all cut away
by a tree-removal company.

I asked him what was wrong with his beautiful trees,
were they ill, or sick, or beset with evil maggots
perhaps, or something I had never heard of.
He said it was even worse than that:

“They make such a mess when their leaves fall off

every year in the fall and I have to clean up that crap.”

Now it's the following spring, and the weeds and the grass and I gather

to share our sad memories together.