We are often reminded through the media of imagery how beautiful and interesting life truly is in Wisconsin. Whether it is a young girl taking a walk with her father on one of Wisconsin’s wooded trails or the fluffy white Wisconsin snow lightly sprinkling a chickadee — Wisconsin reveals many stories and provides many magical scenes. As explorers with cameras in hand, we search for that story — that image that stimulates a powerful emotion — and ones that are instantly engaging or create a state of contemplation. 

This is, in part, what creates the preconditions for art. When the medium is photography, immediately added into the mix is the impressionistic aesthetic of the camera mixed with the photographer's interpretation.

This is a key thing, especially these days where photography is ever more commonplace, and sometimes completely misunderstood.

There is a notion that photography is purely documentary in form. It's not. Whether it is film or a digital sensor that ultimately records the image, that image is infinitely interpreted, both by the photographer and by the photographer's partnership with the scientists and engineers that created the camera, the lens, the film or the sensor.

Before capture there is composition and lighting to decide upon. At the point of capture comes the determination of proper exposure -- which may or may not be as the camera's metering recommends. After capture, there is then the development of the negative or of the raw image, which may require a multitude of software and an unending variety of choices in how that software is applied, the order of application and the means by which the final output is created. 

The end result is definitely, emphatically not documentary. It may be naturalistic to a greater or lesser degree. But it is always impressionistic. 

As photographers, we always strive to create the immediate impression of what we saw or experienced or felt. Today, our immediate impression is that we're pleased to find out that examples of some of our older work has been accepted for juried display at PortalWisconsin.org. Please check out our images at this link here.