“Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.” — David Alan Harvey

As a landscape photographer and enthusiastic golfer, I wanted to show The Sea Ranch Golf Links from the point of view of a player on the course. The photographs are composed and processed not to represent how the course looks from a particularly favorable viewpoint or to highlight its beautiful surroundings. Instead, each image was made in a place a golfer might find himself, as I did, while playing the course; and the processing of the image reflects how the golfer might feel at the moment he or she addresses the ball. They are presented without color to emphasize shape, form, & light, to minimize distractions, and to convey an emotion & mood.

To photograph “what it feels like,” one has to experience that feeling; and the more deeply felt the experience, the more it is reflected in the art. Do I feel anxious or confident? Is it a windy or rainy day and how does this affect my play? Can I visualize the shot and is there a clear path to execute it? Are the hazards dominating my psyche as I approach the ball? Is the undulation of the green relative to the hole intimidating? On any given day, I have experienced some or all of these feelings.

I have learned that to make meaningful photographs, it helps to love the subject. The Sea Ranch Golf Links is an easy place to love; a place of great physical beauty along the Northern California coast. Its beauty and interest lie not in perfectly manicured fairways, smooth cart paths and well raked bunkers. For as one can witness on TV any weekend, or in one’s own game anytime, golf is a game played mostly in one’s mind. The beauty of this land settles into our minds and hearts; and the longer we linger here, the deeper this feeling possesses us.

The goal with these 18 images is to view the course from interesting lies in interesting light, emphasizing a variety of possible shots the golfer might be called upon to make, and to capture how it might have felt to be there. If the viewer can look at one of the photographs and say to himself “ Yes, that’s what I saw, and that’s how I felt, when I was standing behind the ball”, I will have accomplished my goal.