What is reality?

We often hear something like, “I like to take photographs that capture the scene as it exists in reality” and this is often from the so-called photographic purists. But exactly what is reality? Whose reality? There is a saying, “perception is reality”. While perception isn’t exactly reality, perception can become reality, but does it make any difference to us as artists? Yes and no.

First of all, let me clarify something, I believe I am an artist who uses a camera to create my works. I can also be a documentary photographer when the need arises. So when I am wearing my artist who uses a camera hat, which is most of the time by the way, how I perceive a scene of the photograph is most important. I want to record how I perceived a particular scene or subject. Let’s face it, a large percentage of actual reality is boring and uninteresting. To me, reality in my photographs is what I want to make of it not what someone else perceives as reality.

One of the masters of photography has three quotes that come to mind, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it”, “dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships”, and “when I’m ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my mind’s eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I’m interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.” So, when it’s time to create remember those three phrases.