A synonym for awe-inspiring: JAVIER ARCENILLAS

I have many heroes in the world of photography. But, once you see Javier Arcenillas's work, you would have to place him near the top of the list if not at the very top. With each image, I react. Arcenillas's photography, regardless of location (Bangladesh, Northern Africa, North America, South America), is so powerful and so riveting that we can't help but respond. It would be virtually impossible to ignore a single shot.  So firm is the grip that you can't look away from what he is showing us.

I urge you to view his work (click here). My enthusiasm is so great that if I could accompany him on a shoot, even if just to fetch coffee, it would be like swimming in a pool of inspiration, the immersion would be so all consuming and life altering.

I don't think Arcenillas is capable of capturing the mediocre, unless it were of course to mean a compelling image that shouts the message of mediocrity. His imprint is so strong and his ability of stripping down a scene or a person's soul into a simple but moving statement is his signature. Every single image is as if signed by a master.

But, his images speak more emphatically than I can describe, so here is but a small sampling:

depth & dimension

© Henri Cartier-Bresson

Link to the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Cropping as an after-thought ...

Full-frame versus cropping -- to be or not to be.

To "be" is to shoot full-frame. "Not to be" would suggest that if you didn't frame your shot just right when shooting, cropping it afterward is in order to SAVE the shot, hence, you didn't really get the shot you wanted.

Well, that's the purist school of thought anyway.

If given my druthers, I'd never crop. With digital, however, I not only crop like mad, I manipulate the heck out of images. We have the luxury to SAVE images that way. We have the luxury to imprint mediocrity with something splendid. Digital is uber-forgiving and I'd even go so far as to say that if you don't like the shot and you don't like the crop or the manipulation, hey -- just blend it all together with some elements from another rejected shot and you could conceivably come up with a masterpiece.

That isn't to diminish the finished product when its rendered through digital imaging, but for those who are process aficionados, there is something to be admired about capturing the final image at the very moment you expose the film.

I sound highfalutin but the truth is, I really believe that shooting full frame and the deliberate nature of it is an art unto itself. It used to be touted as the respectable way of shooting when you're talking about film. But then, everything seemed more precious with film.

Shooting full-frame is a WAY OF SEEING which means a way of arranging what appears in your viewfinder.

When you compose your shot deliberately so that every corner of the frame is considered, it cannot be denied that that is a more PURE way of taking a photograph. There is no after-thought on which to rely. Sure, I can thoroughly appreciate manipulated images and the painter's mindset that accompanies post-production imagery, but I can tell you that it is exceptionally moving when a powerful image is rendered just at the moment the shutter is clicked.

Shooting full-frame is an art. Cropping is an after-thought. A good crop can produce better art but the better photographer can produce imagery with no cropping at all. : )