My Scintillating Friends

I get to post pointers to my friends’ stuff all the time, because I am gifted with a bunch of very talented friends.

Today’s subject is my compadre Alex Wilson, who is getting more and more recognition for his photographic work. Alex’s photo site has been on my link list as long as I’ve been running this blog, and if you haven’t visited it yet, you really should take a few minutes now to browse over there and look through some of the display galleries Alex has posted.

The most recent example of the attention Alex has been getting is his recent interview in Phirebrush, an online photography magazine. As a bonus, they released the interview on Alex’s birthday, so he had something nice to think about instead of ruminating on the inevitable march towards death.

The interview has some serious discussion of the aesthetic side of photography…

But I don’t think I use facial expressions much in most of my images, I tend to rely on ambiguity. My favourite evocative images are ones that rely on a certain amount of vagueness so that the emotion conveyed is something the viewer brings to the image. If different people can see the same image and have different emotional responses, then I consider that image a success. You can’t control how every viewer will respond to each image, but if the elements of an image can be contrived to allow multiple interpretations, then it may work well as an intentionally ambiguous piece. There is a calculated risk, though, that the viewer will not make an emotional association at all, and get nothing out of the image.

but in some places, that essential Alex Wilson character shows through…

Many photographers probably get asked this, but it has to be asked. Traditional or Digital? Which do you prefer?
The correct answer is “the right tool for the job”, and anyone who says otherwise should be set on fire.

(As an aside, I really love the second image I’ve posted there. It was published in Photolife, which must have been a pretty cool moment for Alex.)