I came across a Q&A on “Feature Shoot” with a professional photographer/mountain climber, Boone Speed, and was very inspired/agreed with his description of when taking pictures becomes an art….

When does the act of taking pictures become art?
BOONE SPEED:: ‘Well, art is beyond just snapping a perfect frame. I believe art is craft plus vision. In the case of photography, it’s understanding the process and being fluent with the equipment, constructing and then deconstructing the process, breaking rules, adding textures and colors and seeing unique angles. It’s adapting selective focus techniques and knowing when to overexpose or underexpose in a way that transforms a shot and captures the moment perfectly. Making that moment extraordinary’.

Boone Speed is a professional photographer based in Portland, Oregon. {Snippet borrowed from an awesome blog site: Feature Shoot.} Highly regarded for his painterly photographic aesthetic and minimalist sensibilities, Speed has been singled out by establishments like Patagonia, Nike, National Geographic Adventure and Nixon to help tell their stories.

I think so many of us forget to imagine what extreme elements the photographer had to go through/experience in order to capture the image. I know in my experience as a photographer – I occasionally experience some crazy elements that don’t even compare to most of the long-time professional (extreme sport) photographers!! It would be so amazing to experience what’s behind a National Geographic, Nike, Columbia, etc…  photo shoot.

You should check out the rest of the Q&A with Boone Speed, but I’ll end it with this…

What’s inspired you lately to the point of doing something about it?
BOONE SPEED:: ‘I’m inspired by everything. Especially the impossible, like getting the impossible shot or climbing the impossible route. Sometimes I’ll just get inspired to shoot in horrible light, just to see if I can shoot a photograph that shows beautifully just how horrible the light is. Does that make any sense? This is something I learned from my father as we were driving across the desert one day when I was about eight years old. When I looked out the window into the hot sun, at the sagebrush against the desolate scorched backdrop, and I commented about how ugly it was, my Dad said, “You’re just not paying attention son. Look at all the colors in the sky, the purples and the oranges”. And then he related it back to how one of his favorites, C.M. RusselI, had the ability to capture all that beauty in his paintings. I’ll never forget that. I think since that day, I’ve tried to see, and capture the beauty, or at least its essence, in all things’.

Here are some of his beautiful images borrowed {again, from Feature Shoot.}

I just love this image [ABOVE]. Look at the contrast of colors.. so earthy. There are so many textures that I want to reach out and touch in this image… and to think that person is just dangling on the side of the mountain adds so  much to the photograph.

Take in this image. Now, think about what kind of position he had to be in to capture this! So great.