Survey
The matrix is a material’s surface which is manipulated with markings it can then reproduce. Normally copper or stone, instead this time it is silver or silicon, film or a digital camera sensor. A photographer should be aware of the physical surface they wield hidden inside their camera. Its size and weight is a barrier between them and their subject. This matrix is imperfect in every way, wholly incapable of completely replicating what it projected upon it.
Ansel Adams convinced men and donkeys to haul glass, chemicals, and tents up the sides of mountains. Seeking unspoiled nature, through an arduous image making process he produced very useful fictions. He knew that nature and photograph were mutually exclusive. The image on the ground glass must be obscured by the film holder.
A photograph does not reproduce nature, it is something new, different, separate. Photographing an event does not improve that event, it distracts from it in order to advertise the next one.
