by Gary Fong
Photographer: Zoe Caras
Click photos to enlarge

Young photographers getting their feet wet in the craft often dive into a world of imagery that can be explored for a lifetime.  Many start out with “rocks and flowers”…which are forgiving in terms of conventional composition and boldness of colors.

Zoe Caras is one of these young lightstakers, dabbling her lens into the land of giant flowers and humongous bugs (“insects” to science teachers).  It’s a visual world one can appreciate without language or mathematics (with the exception of the “universal language” and the f/stop and shutter speed calculations one needs to make for exposures).

Now For the Nit Picking

Often, young photographers begin seeing the world like everyone else, from eye level. But Zoe is appreciating other visual dimensions that produce lovely images a growing subset of the populist find delightful, low angels, close-ups, and from a bug’s perspective.

But here’s the issue…after seeing a few thousand rocks and flower photos…they start melting together in the visual cortex of the archive.  One flower starts looking like another. What one needs to do, shoot images that are unique, that cause others to stop and view in wonderment, to realize the vision beyond a pedestrian vantage point.

If it’s going to be a flower, make it the best image of a flower anyone has ever seen…or find something else that is. Let photography take you beyond the obvious. Think of the camera as the passport to worlds yet undiscovered.

With the brick photo, Zoe is starting to grow into the abstract side of the craft. Abstracts tantalize the viewer with visions people see, but don’t see. Good photographs hold the attention of the viewers for reasons they don’t quiet understand.  But once viewers “see” what the photographers see, they’re amazed why they didn’t see it before.

Zoe, I’m going to guess your dad gave you a camera as a gift.  It’s a wonderful gift.  You should treasure it and where it will take you.

(Dad, the next gift your beautiful and talented daughter will probably ask you about is a car.  It will also take her places.)  

(Zoe, when you ask your dad for a car, tell him a Mercedes is nice…it’s got crumple technology that will sacrifice the structural integrity of the vehicle to protect the passengers and driver.  He can’t argue with protecting his daughter.)