There has been a lot of interest in the upcoming I Heart Faces Photo Walk Across America. As leader of the Bisbee Photo Walk, I find myself advertising the event to everyone who will listen. Many people ask me "what IS a photo walk?" Other people say "I can never find anything worth photographing in the desert, it's so BROWN!" And there was once a time when I couldn't agree more. But just last night I went outside to try to photograph the full moon that was rising. Moons bug me, I can never make them appear as large as they do in person, the magic is never translated through my camera. But then I realized, while playing in the shrubbery for ten minutes, that when I focused on other things in my scene, the moon became much larger. Photography is all about how you "see" the world. Here is a little demonstration: The first image is exactly what I saw on the hill behind my house. There is construction going on and work trailers and lots of dirt, and in general it is NOT where you want to go to take pictures. But I stayed and spent ten minutes looking around, squatting down low, walking up higher, holding my camera to the ground, focusing near, focusing far, and the results were the perfect example for my demonstration. My hope is that anyone interested in photography will attend my Photo Walk and learn a little bit about "seeing" the world around them in a new way, in a way worth photographing. Lord knows the Army sends us to live in some desolate places, so this could be a valuable skill to learn!
WHAT THE AVERAGE PERSON SEES IN A LANDSCAPE:
WHAT I SEE AT FIRST GLANCE WHEN I TAKE IN A SCENE:
WHAT I SEE WHEN I LOOK AT AVERAGE STUFF:
Seeing Like A Photographer▌Sierra Vista Photographer, Arizona
3 comments:
beautiful! :)
excellent tutorial. I will never forget an article I read written by a Nat. Geographic photographer. He went to a field full of dandelions and all he saw were the fluff balls (seed heads). But....one of the things he had learned how to do was to experiment and so he did what you did, got shots from many angles. And he got a stunning photo from underneath with the sun filtering through the fluffy seed heads.
Ordinary can become amazing if you work at it a little bit.
And THAT makes you a sought after talent! Great synopsis of how to see the world through a lens. Your desert is not nearly as bleak as one would think at a glance.
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