Here's a perfect example of the significance of a photograph's context. This sweet little face belongs to a dog I met quite by accident during a recent visit to an Independent Living facility.
On one of my many trips through the lobby of the facility, I noticed these two lovely ladies, sitting and visiting with the staff. On a whim, I stopped to pet the little dog, Chrissie.
I listened to her owner and learned that the next morning, Chrissie was scheduled to be put to sleep. She was nearly blind and had suffered a spinal disease that had left her unable to have consistent control over her back legs.
Her owner was so distraught that she couldn't bear being in her apartment alone, so she had come to the lobby where there were people continually coming and going. It was a distraction from an extremely painful decision.
As always, my camera was close by. I offered to take pictures of Chrissie as a gift to capture the love the two of them had shared for so many years. With permission, I'm sharing these poignant images with you to illustrate the point that context gives each photograph additional meaning and importance.
To Chrissie: You are deeply missed.
the kind of careful attention Ansel Adams gave to each of his images can be achieved by, first and most importantly, working diligently to capture the best image possible. There is too often the temptation to take a sub-par image and then crop and Photoshop it to death. Work to create a good image and then you can adjust it in Photoshop, much as Ansel Adams would have done in his darkroom.
