The Power Of A Single Image

Never under doubt the power of any image that you take.You may not realise the significance of that image that you have taken until many years later. They say that every image tells a story and there is a lot of truth in that statement.

The above picture was taken 30 years ago on my large film base panoramic camera. I took the image  when I coming around the bend on the dirt track in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges . As soon as I saw it , I knew it suited the large format panoramic camera.

When using this camera, it takes a bit of setting up. You can’t just out of the car and snap away,. The size of the camera means  has to be mounted on a tripod . Then you need to get your light metre out, take the readings and set the cameras setting accordingly.With this camera, most of my shutter speeds are between 1 second and 10 seconds depending on what I was taking at the time.

Years later I was displaying my works and not just this panoramic picture, but a handful of others as well. An elderly lady at the time asked how much the picture was. It was framed, mounted and glassed. The print all Up was roughly 1.7 metres wild. The clarity of this print was sensational as the camera is a stunning camera. The transparency was 16×7 cms which is so large and delivers superb results providing you know how to get the correct settings.

This camera is fully manual. There are no electronic parts to this camera.It is a beautiful piece of old technogly that is simply stunning and is timeless and you never have to do any upgrades like the digital world of today.

The above picture is a old picture of myself using this camera a very long time ago . Only to be that young again. I’m so glad that I had bought this camera over 30 years ago. I bought this second hand from a chat in Western Australia. It had only taken 60 pictures at the time( There is a counter underneath the camera) The chap whom I bought it from thought it was a camera where you can simply point and shoot.Using this camera taught so much as you have to use it totally manually and knowing all of that, means it has kept me in good stead ever since.

Back to the lady who bought my print taken on this camera. I tried to talk her out of buying the print as it was very expensive and she was in her early 80’s. No matter how I tried to talk her out of buying the print, she was determined to buy it. There was no way that I was going to be able to talk her out of it.

In the end I asked her. ‘Why are you so determined to buy this print? ” Her words’ Young man,( not so young now)I want this picture as this picture is a vivid memory for me where my late husband and I use to take our old caravan and we use to camp in that spot in the Flinders Ranges every year over 50 years.I want to hang that picture on the wall at the end of my where my feet go so when I close my eyes to go to sleep, this will always be the last thing I see of where my husband  and I spent many wonderful and happy times together. I don’t care if I pass away in 6 months time, at least in that time, I’m constantly reminded of my beautiful late husband and all of the wonderful times we shared together at this very spot”

Even writing this now, it still brings tears to my eyes that a single picture can mean so much to a person. We all have our own stories and for this lady, her story is found within This image and this is the most powerful image that I have taken based on her story.

To this day this remains my most powerful image I’ve ever taken, not because of the image itself but rather because of the story that lies behind the image. That is where the power of this image lies.

Never under estimate the power of the image as your picture could mean ever so much more to another.:)