A special thanks to Alfred, Annie, Ansel and Mathew

It's funny to see photographers out and about with their cameras often times thinking they are taking a picture of a certain subject for the very first time. I can assure you that no matter what the subject, unless it is something new to the world or recently discovered, it has been photographed. (Yes even the exit sign or that glass of water we have all photographed.) It's always great to believe you have taken the photograph of all time, but chances are it has been taken a hundred times before. Difference is...you took it and that's what makes it special.

Photography has been around for a long time. I mean even before the digital camera hit the market in the early 1990's, photography had already been around for more than 150 years. Before the Civil War a photographer named Mathew Brady opened his own photography studio in NYC. He went on the photograph some of the battlefields during the Civil War---back then cameras were a lot different than they are today. You had to really work with available light, large cumbersome cameras, and very heavy glass plates---a lot different than a card you now slip into the camera.

When Ansel Adams and Alfred Eisenstaedt were taking pictures around the same time in the 1920, 30s and 40s, both had very different ideas of what they thought great photography was. Adams captured the beauty of the southwest and and areas around California, and Eisenstaedt was found mainly around the east coast in places such as Martha's Vineyard. (He was the photographer who took the V-Day kiss in Times Square, one of the most famous photographs of all time.)

In today's times we have Annie Leibovitz--- known for portrait photography that has been seen around the world she is probably most famous for her work in Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone Magazines. What's her talent besides taking a photo? She knows how to create stories through photography. An incredible talent.

What's really important to learn through these photographers and others is style and what was their reason for pushing the button and capturing the image. Ansel Adams for instance would wait for hours and even days to take pictures at the right moment. He didn't have all of the photo tools we have today, but he knew how to do a lot with pictures when he was in the darkroom developing them. Eisenstaedt worked for Life Magazine so I suspect he did more shooting than processing and Leibovitz is just our modern day genius; I don't know what she does behind the scenes but behind the lens she creates iconic photography.

Which gets me back to today's opening paragraph. Yes there are many photographers who have mastered this craft. They are artists, gifted, and I hope thankful to those who mastered the craft before us. Because as the above picture attempts to demonstrate, you can take pictures that might make an attempt to look like the masters of photography (this was taken in Northern California) at the end of the day they are just that----recreations that have been taken before. II am actually okay this image has been taken before, because on this day it was one of my favorites I took when I was in my zone doing what I love to do, shooting pictures.

Thanks for stopping by.