IzoneVision's slide shows are self-executing PC format.

IzoneVision's galleries have background information and comments about the photographs.

I have been photographing over the last 15 years in some of the world's interesting locations. Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, the Southwest and other North America locations, Canada, France-Provence, Italy, Austria, and Hungary. My photographic style developed from the desire to explore new places and grow in understanding. Some photographs were originally digital while others were taken with film and scanned. My belief is here you will find photographs made with style and crafted by an knowledgeable eye.

all photos copyright by Robert Abramson 2007

________________________________________________________

Portfolio on Photoshelter: Online Agent for Travel Images

-SPAIN: 654 246 384

-FRANCE: 06.82.52.43.73

-USA: (510) 717-3892

:Article:

Since I have been photographing for three decades I have had time to consider the place of photography and the role of the photographer. From the earliest efforts to control the phenomena of light rays casting a refracted image to fixing that image on a glass plate and, after, to a negative that could be duplicated, the strengths and weaknesses of the photographic process have formed and remolded the world.

The process that finalizes an image is simple but our reaction to it is complicated. Here I would like to address one of the facetts of that relationship.

It is not too much to say we are in awe of photography. When we see a photograph of ourselves it is instantly recognizable as a moment in our lives. TIME and its mysterious nature draw us in to the picture. "What was that background image and where did those clothes styles go"? We recognize the element of TIME has written on this thin paper some information to be stored for now and forever or however long the material of the photo will allow.

Initially it was human memory that stored life's experiences. A inaccurate device, much of history was selective. As an example, when early humans painted on cave walls more than likely these were wishes of success in hunting and a hope for that number of pray.

With photography, where did these hopes go? Here was a medium rendering with painful accuracy the details of the world. Yet, it is the strength of our desire to wish and hope that these elements play a part in making photographs today. How much wishing is there in our Kodachrome world? To this end, what is the role and responsibility of photography and the photographer?

In the modern world photography is bond by the pictorial standards of painting. Expectations are strong for a beautiful world to be "captured" on film to the extent that photographers find themselves before dawn or near dark exposing film to capture pleasing lighting. Again, a photographer is often called on to reduce those wrinkles and laugh lines, basically beautify, a photograph. It was Van Gogh's strength of will that his paintings were renderings of a more awe-inspired world, an interior reality that stored bulky bodies and wild, tragic skies.

It is still valid to ask how photography can unchain itself from a mandate to render a beautiful world? I believe it should be in the application of the principles of order and symmetry but it could be down another path, as well. By invading our sense of TIME photography is expected to pay penance. Show us a beautiful world and our ageless selves. Humanity wants to see the TRUTH but not in an unpalatable way. But images of war and the atrocities of those conflicts have brought just that; an unpalatable image. World conflicts have exaggerated the need for beauty and photography is the Pandora's Box here in the modern world.

:Slide Show Downloads:

Above are Flash buttons links to the slide show downloads. Click button for download. Size and format on the right.

*Licensing for slide show available otherwise for individual viewing only (all rights reserved, copyright r.abramson 2007). Print prices can be viewed Here