A couple of years ago I was sitting on the couch, getting acquainted with a camera, and I quickly took a few photos. I realized tht for just sitting on the couch, snapping away, the photos aren't bad. They're not great but — and this is important — I made the most of the situation. I looked, composed, and clicked the shutter.
Abby across the room stayed put for a few minutes. A vase of dried poppy pods on the "Holly Cabinet" caught my eye, as did the way the sun shone on a floor lamp, the shadows on a knob, and the simple inlay on a cedar chest.
Could I have taken more? Yes. But photography wasn't my goal right then. Figuring out the functions of the camera was what I was working on.
The point of all this is that SEEING, LOOKING, NOTICING are the quietly important aspects of photography (and this applies to sketch artists and painters). Cameras do so much for us and so easily that we often forget the human behind the viewfinder, our unique vision, the thing that makes our photos ours.
Teaching someone to see is the most challenging part of my job. But sometimes it just requires sitting on a couch, looking around.
©Carol Leigh, who overachieves in couch-sitting . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment