Common subjects captured from an uncommon point of view are the first virtue of the fine art photographer. Look left, look right; look up, look down, themes are all around.

I use this simple catchphrase each time I begin a new fine art photography workshop series. And each time, I find that the words themes, thematics, and a visual art thesis, seem to breed fear for photographers new to the fine art genre. Why is this?

The internal psychological reasons are many; fears of personal acceptance (I’ll never be any good), sense of self-worth (I’m not an artist), creative discipline (this will have to do), and personal commitment (I should do something else in case this doesn’t work). Another fear is that for many photographers, consciously decoding visually what one synthesizes emotionally is often uncomfortable, as one has to reach for that uncommon point of view. This is frequently a life changing experience.

But I also believe that thematic fear occurs because we have been taught photography one image at a time. Here is a picture of my brother fishing, or this is a wow image of our new widget, which will appear in the next issue of X. Initially this was a function of photography’s mechanical limitations— glass plates, sheet film, rolls of film, all had an image count limitations (1, 12, 24, and 36 shots) and the cost per unit defined economic limits or some might say pictorial discipline. While these mechanical and economic considerations often restricted creative freedom, they also ingrained in us the belief that a photograph is a definitive, single image expression; “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Image capture in the digital age has few upper limits, but the habit of thinking of photography as a one shot medium persists. Single shot thinking is valid for a wide variety of applications; snapshots, portraits, and advertising among others. With fine art photography, we brutally edit numerous images and ideas to the few that will support a thematic direction. The theme is the mission not the single image.

For example, a collection of colorful Yosemite Pictures is a collection of colorful Yosemite pictures that may work in a travel brochure or a few could hang on a wall as pictorial examples of an iconic landscape or a testament to the photographer’s skills. The fine art photographer may approach that same landscape with an emphasis on light and form wherein symbolic color can visually translate a range of emotions. Pre-vision capture and post-vision enhancement techniques are useful for producing fundamental interpretations beyond standard landmark beauty and identification. By changing the point of view to simplify the shapes and then post amplifying (or deconstructing) the colors or tones found in the landscape the fine art photographer can ‘synthesize’ his or her feelings to expand the emotional range and expressive power of the landscape. The result is often an insight into the artist’s thoughts and feelings as seen by in and out of frame symbols. Moreover, this type of work provokes emotional responses in an audience beyond the image because symbolic undertones conjure much broader relationships.

Word association exercises can help develop new thematic concepts, something I encourage. But photography is not language. Language provides direct communication, and while creative writing can create mind pictures and soul felt emotions, language is fundamentally conclusive. Photography is inconclusive because it is subject to how the individual viewer recalls their life experiences and their level of emotional resonance is subject to their personal synthesis of aesthetics and feelings about a given thematic. Within the fine art genre, a single image can and should inflame language while a body of thematic work can recast language with various gradations.

Finally, there is the fear of not finding a theme. This is remotely akin to writer’s block but more precisely, it is a desire to find a shortcut like ‘Method Acting’ to arrive at a thematic character. Thematic work requires exploration, introspection, not construction, as a constructed theme is often limiting, and subconsciously photographers often restrict what they see in order to fit a blueprint. Rather than select a subject. . . feel one.

Look left, look right, look up, look down, themes abound.