Photography

My name is Matthew J Richardson. Welcome to richardsonartphotography.com. I hope you like what you see!

I do not pretend to have an all-encompassing artistic vision that unites all of my photographs. What my photographs have in common is the simple reason that they have been taken because they capture something that I think is worth looking at. I am not looking for something in the world; be it a specific emotion, political message or whatever, I am simply looking at it. And when I find myself looking at something for that little bit longer, in the hope that I might see something in it, I take a picture in order that I can share what I have seen with somebody else. If you are reading this then hopefully that someone is you, and to you I would like to extend my thanks. That you see exactly what I see is not important; after all there is no guarantee of that ever happening, what is important is that I have shown you something that I think is worth looking at. And in so doing I have shared something of myself.

I am privileged enough to have met Louis Stettner. He looked at some of my photographs, and the ones that he picked out for comment were those which, he said, said something about me. A good photograph, he said, reveals something about its photographer. What is important is not simply what we are looking at, but from what perspective and in what way we are looking at it.

I hope he will not mind if I quote him directly, since what he says he does so well:

"Sooner or later we are forced to define ourselves. Which is to say we must reveal in the photograph how we personally feel about life, what is happening around us. This of course is what gives the photograph its innate worth, makes it necessary to look at. Everybody knows what a fish, or a tree, or a street looks like. We need to know and appreciate the spirit, the vision of the photographer who can enrich our way of experiencing life. Photographers find out about themselves as they discover the world around them, and they make a contribution to the world because their photographs show their own unique way of seeing."

Some of My Favorite Photographers

Louis Stettner
About Photography
Google Image Search
Artcyclopedia

Weegee
Getty Images

Robert Doisneau
Website

Brassai
Photo Seminars
About Photography

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Website
After Image Gallery
Artcyclopedia