Freeman Patterson explaining photography

If you read the biography of Freeman Patterson you will be puzzled his first call of what to do with his life was not photography. The man has a Master in Divinity degree and a bachelor in philosophy. He worked as a photographer for some newspapers as a temporary job and then decided to pursue photography full time. It is an interesting life trajectory to veer from seriously thinking in God to dream in banal images!

You will find many photographers who will show an interesting image but will not have the inner structure to explain the thought process or whether it represents more than a fantasy. The scaffolding process on reaching a certain image, which reflects an emotion, a thought or just life, is appealing when you read Patterson's books about photography. If you juxtapose the education with his images, some of them have an eerie feeling, something that gives you pause and wonder what is a photo for human psyche.

Yes, he is from the old guard, maybe not that flashy and keeps company to others in the craftsmanship of photography with the same type of ideas about how to approach the process (Andre Gallant).

I was impressed with Patterson's images first from Canadian journals in photography, where he is all known for landscapes and very abstract compositions in nature. If you are curious about his works just search the net but I highly recommend his books. If you are more serious about the craft you can book one of his workshops in News Brunswick, Canada.

What made me "jealous" from his work, was the trips to Namibia's deserts and the images he captured there. In his own words, photography is a very thoughtful process, elaborated, imagined and laborious. That in itself is a very interesting idea about artists in general, found many times in the art history life of painters, sculptures and other artists - they find a place on earth where their mind/soul just exudes, is inspired and have many pilgrimages to that place. Their soul is fermenting, turning and spit out something valuable for all of us. For Patterson is Namibia and News Brunswick.

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