One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the Art of Seeing.
And how the seeing part of the equation, for every single picture we take, with any camera, big or small, dedicated or phone, precedes the shooting part of the equation.
Sometimes, like Edward Weston, you can “previsualize” the entire subject or scene, in your head, before you even begin the shooting process.
But for most of us, we don’t actually “see” a subject, scene, or scenario until we frame it up in our viewfinders.
It is, often, that moment, that we have our photographic aha realization. Click.
“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures” Don McCullin
Like I’ve claimed many times before when it comes right down to it, the technical part of photography is a matter of mastering about a dozen or so scientific principles of light and exposure, all of which can be learned, principally, over a long weekend.
But it’s the playing and experimenting with these technical principles, in endless combinations and integrations, that make the “Art of Seeing” the Holy Grail of photography.
“You can’t teach people photography, they’ve got to learn how to do it the best way possible for them. They can learn from looking at pictures…but they don’t really get intimate with the medium until they’ve made a few bad shots” Cecil Beaton
Some of us were born with a healthy dose of creative genes, which make, in short, the art of seeing, an easier task.
But for most of us, we learn to see, in photography, through a tireless, vigorous, zealous, and tenacious commitment to learning.
I love the fact that, along the way, through work and play, I learned the technical craft of photography.
But I love even more that I learned and am learning to see with my camera.
This type of visual seeing gives me, you, and everyone who invests in it, a backstage pass to a concert of light, color, and design that is, literally and emotionally, unimaginable.
“To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces” Ansel Adams
Click
Jack
