Steven Barber

Much of the challenge (and pleasure) of photography is to give a sense of place. While the photographer may have concrete memories of a moment he/she has captured in time, the viewer does not. 

What has to occur for the viewer to appreciate a photograph is the triggering of a memory, thought or emotion. 

For a picture to be truly successful it must be visceral, capturing the essence of what the photographer saw, and melding it to a feeling the viewer once felt. 

I am drawn to take a picture as a result of a fraction-of-a-second emotional reaction. If I see something that attracts my eye it must, in that fraction, catch me and then tell me a story. 

For me to later select that picture -- among the potentially hundreds of others I have taken -- as one which I wish to share, it has to have a little something extra, a little something that brings me up short, makes me stop and look. 

And look again.