Diversity in Black and White -A Monochrome World

Photography is about telling the story sometimes in colour sometimes in the drama of black and white, what is the story behind an image in whatever medium works for that image subject. It can be your story not necessarily mine. The vast majority of people look at an image and see only a nice photo few look beyond seeking purpose. Knowledge that it is a nice looking snap of a family member does not have any ties to understanding, it is akin to amorality. The mass availability of phone cameras and general compacts has taken the general perception of photography into the world of the myopic monochrome and away from artistic achievement. Professional photographers now find it hard to achieve true value for their hard worked images, for in order to generate a truly creative image it still takes hard work and a creative mind. Photography of the highest quality still has its high place in the world of creative media. Like the master artists who use the right equipment in order to achieve their chosen objective the best photographers select the best tools for their creative path . The camera is only the brush. Pointing a phone and clicking and accidentally achieving a good snap is not a creative path, it is usually a good family or travel record. At my recent exhibition in London the curator Ruta Sasnauskaite cleverly devised a competition whereby people had to find certain information buried within the images. The winner was the one with the closest answers to the ones held by the curator. Everyone took part; the answers where not the issue what it did was to make the audience look into the photograph and not at it. Involvement with an image can give the same level of intellectual enjoyment that a fine piece of music does moving the viewer from knowledge to understanding.