Watson and Holmes
In Adobe Lightroom, I darkroomed this photo as shot. The exposure was decreased using graduated filters to bring more definition to the rams' faces and to contrast them with the blue sky, which was adjusted for hue (I love chicory bloom blue), saturation and luminance, to increase the illusion of a third dimension on the two dimensional plane, seeing as we do, through perspectival discoveries of Quattrocento painting.
Yet both versions of the photograph have little to do with what I saw in the viewfinder when I released the shutter.
Reality, which in many cases is language dependant (opposed to seeing your mother which is not), is chameleon-like with no fixed repository of meaning. Specifically, does reality reside in your eyes, in the Nikon D700, in Lightroom, in my eyes, or in medieval eyes who had not yet seen painting by Sandro Botticelli? All locales have their say here. Perhaps a (see)saw from Williams Carlos Williams can help us, “It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it..." (see for say)
What I saw from behind the camera was none of the above; what I saw was a picture taken by someone else. One that I'd seen years ago where the ram's head was above the photographer's while standing. I had longed for the majestic feeling of that photograph and now I might finally get something similar to it—circumstances were permitting—I framed the rams with the Nikkor 24-70mm zoom at 42mm; then shooting Aperture Priority at f/7.1, the camera adjusted itself to 1/250 sec at ISO 2000 and I got 6 exposures (all slightly out of focus, unfortunately) in 2 seconds before the rams changed position in the low, flat light of the afternoon. Jean Luc Godard often expressed to Raoul Coutard, his long-time cinematographer, what angle he wanted by referencing another filmmaker's shot, "comme Hitchcock à fait dans Rear Window..."
The rams look over my left shoulder at Poem who is sitting 20 paces behind me. And you can bet she's looking back at them waiting for the word.
Thanks!