Besides the Obvious
©Mark Reierson
Sometimes all it takes is something small to alter the way you see things in a big way. Ward Rosin introduced me to a photography app called Contrast by Hornbeck. This app does basically one thing — it visualizes the world in a super high contrast way. This simple app has sparked a small revolution in the way I see light and composition. In short it has caused a renewed appreciation for the subtleties of light.
©Mark Reierson
If the progression of my work had been on a path of leaning into the shadow before, this app has pushed me across the line. Contrast allows me have readily available the ability to make photos that speak to something deep inside me.
©Mark Reierson
For me, photographing this way is like an imperfect metaphor of the way life feels to me. There are parts of life that live deep in shadow and mystery. Not necessarily evil, but simply unknowable, hidden from our knowledge, defying our understanding. Then there are the parts of life that are pure and so obviously right that they are a joy. Yet all around me it seems too often people see only the two extremes of life – the black and the white. Those starkly obvious parts are generally boring but, the interesting parts in life, as in photography, are the interplay at the edges of black and the white. For within those often slender bands are beautiful tonal gradients and if you look close enough even the sharpest line of a shadow is gradated to some degree.
©Mark Reierson
Beyond the fun and creative side of this app, on those days when I struggle to find motivation to even pick up my camera, having this App with me practically all the time has been a creative life-line. It has been my experience that my subconscious eye will react to some shape or patch of light as I am going about my day. I pull out my phone and am often am rewarded with some abstraction that is both beautiful and satisfying. As I put my phone back into my pocket I feel a small bit of energy deposited into soul.
©Mark Reierson
©Mark Reierson
So through the abstraction of the common and familiar, the pushing of shadows and highlights, I allow myself to focus on the dance of tones that exist in those narrow places of existence. And when I am lucky I even get to make a photograph.
©Mark Reierson