William H. Gordon (aka, Gordini)

~Creative Photographic Imagery

 

Born and raised in New York and currently living & working in the Sierra Foothills of California.

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For many years, I have photographed under the moniker of Gordini and I have always enjoyed an intense consciousness of my surroundings.  I can most often find beauty almost anywhere and in any situation…  It might be an amazing sunset, the moonlight delicately peeping through the leaves of a stately tree, or even the patterns of horrific smoke rising from a blazing forest.  When you can connect your vision to your imagination it is amazing what you can see… Really see.

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For me, my favourite place to be is behind my camera and simply waiting for the light.  This profession has taken me to many places, some familiar and some to which I’d never been to before. The intensity of these experiences are exponentially magnified for the photographer who sits quietly waiting for that precise moment to capture what has already been envisioned in his mind’s eye.

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The process of choosing the subject, planning the composition, preparing the equipment, and ultimately pressing the shutter release comprises a process that in itself is immensely enjoyable.  But once I am perched in position, the grandeur of Mother Nature illuminating the scene with her ever-changing pallet of light, colours, and textures makes each and every second that passes truly magical.  Every new day presents her with a blank canvas on which she will delight every being who will simply take a moment to observe.

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If it is true that our music comprises the soundtracks our lives than surely it must be our photographs that are its screenplay.  Every image vividly freezes a single moment in time that can fill our hearts with remembrances and uniquely arouse a sense of travelling through time.  It is practically impossible to view any photograph without such occurrences and thus, in the end, it is the photographer who in turn has become the storyteller.

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It is the anticipation and excitement of bringing to life a conception that heretofore had only existed within the mind’s eye that propels one to journey out into the night at 3 AM with fifty-pounds of gear strapped to their back.  Every such adventure is as unique and as exciting as a new day and with it comes the hundreds of variables that must all come together if one is to make an extraordinary photograph.

   

At last, the camera is now perched upon the tripod, adjusted, focused, and silently awaiting the perfect moment.  The night's silence is broken by the sound of one’s own beating heart, the peaceful whisper of a gentle night’s breeze, and from time to time, the rustling about of the critters of the night.

 

It is filling my eyes with a million different spectacles as dawn unfolds and repaints the scene over and over again from a never-ending pallet.  And it is the enormous anticipation felt with each release of the shutter and wondering if it has all come together as imagined and planned. 

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But more than any of this, as if these were not enough, is the satisfaction of viewing each finished photograph and allowing them, one-by-one, to conjure up memories of all the details, every aspect, and each moment invested in its creation. 

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For the photographer, this is an art form rich with never-ending gifts.  And for the viewer, it is a momentary spellbinding journey to another place, another time, and a unique opportunity to observe the world through the eyes of another soul.

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