Phil Napala – Digital technology has changed us dramatically over the last decade. We do things faster, better and ways unthinkable by individuals from previous generations. With photographic computer manipulation software, endless combinations of effects and filters can be applied to an original image. But many of these combinations are just blind alleys that make no coherent sense.
We can do many tricks, but often we end up with too little. I needed a guide where form follows feeling and I found Japanese woodblock print masters as my guides. Japanese woodblocks capture the control, precision, and clarity of the period landscapes and natural forms. I follow the Japanese woodblock path to make my photographic message stronger and clearer.
Simplicity and form: what I try to do is take photographic images and strip out the nonessential. Photography is transcription art form that records everything that is in front of the lens. It’s too much information, coming from all possible angles, at too great a speed. The way we live right now is similar with 24-hour news reports and mobile phones, video streaming and impossible emails that demand personal attention. Basically what I did a few years ago was to shut down. I need a more intimate impression of the world, a more stripped down version.
“You can have anything you want, but you can’t have every thing.” I filter the world, seeing small, more snug, with more intimacy. I show what I see, not what the camera sees a much more narrower view.
