Documenting our Landscape

Photographs capture that which the photographer attempts to capture. The creative experience is one in which one attempts to re-present a spontaneous or original image in such a way as to evoke a response, either positive or negative but never neutral, in a potential viewer. Yet it is not difficult to lose confidence in one’s spontaneity of our own thoughts or actions. How can I be sure I am not re-producing something I have done before or have acquired without embedding that approach as my own vision? How can I be assured that the motivation that inspired the shot in the first instance did not disappear moments before I snapped the shutter, having lapsed into something like memory? How can I be assured that the trace I capture is a kind of mental record or even a re-production of my vision. It seems that the apparent instanteneity of the photograph is a most elusive phenomenon.