Our eyes catch the attention but it is our minds and their feelings that enable us to see and interpret what is before our cameras or what we create with our photography.
With this blog I’m expanding to the Internet my Wondering, Wandering Photographer column, which I’ve now done 35 years for the Greeley, Colo., Tribune.
"In the Beginning" -- Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colo. © Paul F. Moloney
I was 14 years old (1949) when my father inspired my lifetime of photographing life being lived.
I interrupted him with my babble about baseball while he was typing a business letter. He pushed himself away from his desk, stood up, took me by the shoulder, clutched me to his heart and looked straight into my eyes: “Paul, the world’s most successful people are the best listeners.”
He said it only once. What did Dad mean? I saw a wonderful command in his eyes, and this got me to thinking and feeling.
There isn’t a day ever since that I repeat to myself his meaningful advice. This continually inspires me and is the foundation of my photography as communication and art.
Another inspirational person was photographer André Kértész, an immigrant from Hungary who continues to touch readers with his sensibility and elegent work. I often think about him, and I always practice his advice:
“Seeing is not enough. I don’t photograph what I see. I photograph what I feel. The camera can see but that is not enough. You have to feel what you photograph. If the feeling is not there, why bother.”
To feel as Kértész and I feel, it takes all of our senses — sight, sound, touch, taste, wonder, common and humor — to accomplish our goals.
In 2001 I produced my third book, “Friends and Celebrities,” which highlights then 45 years in photojournalism. Though the medium is dramatically changing, it is my intention to express my feelings artistically and journalistically for as long as possible.
In his early years at Life magazine, Alfred Eisenstaedt described his photography as “a witness to our time.”
I wish to share this inquisitiveness, the answers and solutions with you.
In creating the title for my Tribune column, I found I am an inveterate wonderer and wanderer, and to explain:
“Paul Moloney has always ‘wondered’ about life, marveled at and admired the beauty God has granted the world — and ‘wandered,’ roamed, roved with his cameras.”
I’ll punctuate with periods (.) and question marks (?) rather than an exclamation mark (!). In that way we will be “the world’s best listeners.”
Welcome.
Vedauwoo, Wyo. May 2008, left; September, 2008. Yosemite National Park was then lifeblood to master American landscape photographer Ansel Adams. I love the Rocky mountains and find areas that the four seasons are quite beautiful and unique. The image, right, was made in September 2008. In May the weather was terrible, but I still photographed, left. The white snow gave the picture dimension. © 2008 Paul F. Moloney
