Light, Water,Air, and Time.
These are the basic elements of life. Without all four, living things on this small and fragile planet would not exist. Our remote ancestors intuitively understood this. They revered these crucial elements in legends, drawings, and ceremony. I believe that we are innately attracted to imagery, poetry, songs, and words that contain these elements because a deep part of our collective soul knows that these things are the very pillars of our home, our origin. In each of these photographs, I attempt to present one or more of these elements in a manner that evokes a visceral appreciation of the natural beauty that flows from them.
My background in photography includes a brief but very fortunate and influential time spent with Ansel Adams in Yosemite, who studied music before turning to photography. He likened creating the negative as composing a visual score, which is subsequently performed as visual music in the creation of the photographic print. I can only hope that my photographs might sing half as sweetly as his.
I’ve also been influenced by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson who emphasized the concept of the decisive moment: intuitively knowing the exact instant to release the shutter in order to capture the significance of the scene. For him, that was the essence of photojournalism.
My work includes images gathered from extensive wilderness travel, primarily in maritime and mountainous regions of western North America, but also the American Southwest, Australia, and the Northwest Territories in Canada. I strive to present a harmonious image that presents a single instant from a changing scene that’s rich in the basic elements of light, water, air, and time. That photographically captured moment then continues to resonate and can sing to the part of us that, just like our ancestors, intuitively understands where we came from.
Geoffrey Ferguson
Geoffrey Ferguson joined Fine Art America on November 16th, 2014.
