Murray J Peterson

Artist Photographer

Photography

Real Photography - Unreal World

I find the subjects for my photographs by a dual process of exploration. One is a physical journey, the other a road trip of the soul.

I am guided in my search by a map of highly personal ideas - an accumulation of fond memories and longings for timeless, pristine places. We each tend to "see what we want to see", so naturally I find what I'm looking for, but the cold eye of the camera doesn't care - it has no soul.

To make the photograph I have to simultaneously inhabit two modes of perception. On the one hand I have to hold the “vision” of an intuitive, subconscious-driven, high state of awareness. On the other I have to be analytical and objective to translate the sign language I perceive - to decode the order hidden in the noise of complex detail.

I use the camera to frame and simplify what I see, in an attempt to make concrete this ephemeral experience - to clarify and communicate in this primordial language, the conversation between elements of the landscape - a wave calls out to a cloud - lines in the sand reach out to the sun.

The photograph is made - the flow of time is suspended. There is time to think - time to rest - time to talk. The beholder becomes a participant, and joins the conversation, no longer just a spectator.