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My Philosophy of Photography

Photography has had a bumpy history in the art world. For many years after its beginnings it was not considered to be art by many. However, it ultimately prevailed and started making inroads in the art world. Later came color photography. It too faced opposition just as did the original black & white photography, but again prevailed. A few years ago digital photography was born and like its parents had to battle for recognition. Now digital photography is accepted by most people. Personally, I believe that any means by which a person creates an expression of his inner self is art.

I express myself through photography. I started out shooting B&W negatives in high school and later added color slides. I developed these myself and made B&W prints in my own darkroom. Several years ago, I jumped on the digital camera bandwagon.

Although the medium through which I express myself artistically is photography, I am not a purist. I have no problem with manipulating my photos with Lightroom, Photoshop, or other imaging software to create my own unique vision. In fact, some adjustments are needed just to make a photograph look like the original scene since cameras do not see the same way our eyes do.

While there is a place for photography that is true to the original scene such as in photojournalism, scientific documentation, and forensics, in the fine art world anything goes. For most of my photographs I only use software to perform traditional enhancements that have been done in the darkroom for many years such as adjusting colors, saturation, contrast, softness, sharpness, etc. For other photographs I may apply special effects or even composite multiple images. All of these techniques come together to produce my unique vision.

Browse through my images by clicking PHOTOGRAPHS in the menu at the top, and feel free to drop me a line with your comments.

Thanks for visiting my Web site,

Randy C. Finch