by Richard Chang

If you could define a recipe for extraordinary images, what would that recipe contain? Could you imagine that two indispensible recipe components are vision, and craft? This question could cause us to ask just what are vision and craft? In this author's opinion, they are the minimum attributes necessary for entry into the categrory of extra ordinary. To be considered art, to be considered classically timeless, these attributes are required. How many times have we seen compelling picture content but couldn't get past a poorly crafted image? Or technically amazing images whose two dimensional design was, to put it bluntly, boring?

If we look at the art that has lasted the test of time, we almost always see this combination of vision and craft. Michaelangelo, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Degas; all of these artists had these two basic ingredients. For your personal vision, can you think of any other indispensible components under your intellectual control? What is vision? I could share my definition, which is a really not a definition but a description of what I consider important. That description would be a rendering of scene reflectance whose two dimensional rendering compels the viewer to see or feel an emotion.

Edward Weston was one of my favorites for allowing us to see ordinary objects as objects of art, his best images are eye opening exercises for anyone who is visually literate. Just about anyone who has seen Weston's famous "Peppers" sees much more than vegetables. Edward's son Brett, was a compelling communicator of the abstract. Vision has no boundaries, there is no formula for making it. You will immediately know when you see it, and, you will sometimes not recognize it when it is right in front of you. Luckily, appreciation doesn't require anything other than the honest emotion that we like it.

Unfortunately, visual literacy can play a part in the perception of extraordinary. For some of us, appreciation of art is defined by our notion of art history while others appreciate things we see for no other reason than we like it. Lay people sometimes don't appreciate the craft or the vision due to a lack of perspective. The allegory I often use is the musician who can't quite master the extra difficult transitions; we think it's all good but the musician is keenly aware and appreciative of the other guy who's just that little bit better. The musician's appreciation is not a lay perception; the lay perception lacks perspective. In similar fashion, so goes the appreciation of visual communication as defined by visual literacy, some of us see extraordinary and some of us miss it.The best vision is immediately obvious to all who see it, regardless of visual literacy.

What is vision? Vision is an ever evolving component of your rendering effort. If you try new things, if you take risks by showing others images that are not typical of your style or the style of others, your vision will evolve. If your vision is dictated by the concepts of others, like art directors or designers, you may want to explore what you feel, what you see, to find out how others perceive your ability to emote with your images.

Working for yourself, by yourself, can be a cathartic experience. It could be that gratuitous, selfishness introspection through your making of images, is exactly what is required to develop your own personal vision. It certainly does not hurt to work individually on you own.

What is Craft? My definition includes the compelling rendering of considered transition of tone that communicates to the viewers of your work, an emotional communication that allows them to see your vision. Craft also includes all parts of assembling the final visual product: developing, printing, spotting, and mounting. Impeccable transition of tone is the obvious part of craft that you can make for others to see.

We all marvel at the obvious craft of the images we see in Ansel Adams' work. Everything is is properly placed on the straight-line section of the characteristic curve, only scintillating highlights and featureless, pure black shadows lack the detail required for the rendering of three dimensional reflectances on his two dimensional paper surface. This transition of tone allows us to see a palpably three dimensional world within the boundaries of Ansel's prints. Craft can be an evasive quality in the rendering of images when you first begin to shoot. Although luck can occassionally intervene, it is most often the experience of the beginning shooter that craft is an elusive quality. It is not uncommon for the acquisition of the crafstmanlke skillset to require years of hard work.

Getting that perfectly transitioned image on a consistent basis is the goal, rendering beautiful light emotionally is the object of the goal. Understanding how photography works is often more important than knowing how to make a picture when attempting to master the perfect rendering of transition of tone. Knowing how photography works will often more easily allow the fundamental understanding of how to make transition of tone, especially when attempting images outside the boundaries of your typical vision. If the viewers of your work are amazed at your control of transition of tone, at your ability to organize both simple and complex designs within your chosen image area, if they forget they are looking at a photograph and are transported by your rendering, then your image very likely contains both vision and craft. What else can we ask of our communication to others?