People who have just begun photographing always lament over how difficult it is to find good subjects to photograph. Many people, even experienced photographers, believe that they have to go to some exotic location to find great photographs. While it may be fun and interesting to travel to some exotic outpost, you do not have to go there to find and to make good photographs. Images are all around you. One of the most important things that someone can do to develop as a photographer and artist is learn how to see. Wherever you are right now there are thousands of photographs right there in front of you. The trick is learning to see them. The more familiar you are with your environment the more difficult it is to really see it. Our brains love to categorize and define everything that we see and encounter. This is a survival mechanism and is built into our physiology. This type of thinking is controlled in most people by the left hemisphere of the brain. This is the logical, verbal, rational side. The other side of the brain, the right, is the creative, abstract one in most people. The left brain naturally dominates. In our society today it dominates even more because the types of skills that it handles are more prized. Everyone has been pushing you into math and science your whole life. So it is no wonder that these type of logic-based skills become strong in most people. I have read that there are many people that believe that we were all creative when we were younger. Then, somewhere during our school years, our creativity was no longer celebrated and it faded. Sometime during our schooling it was time to get down to business, to logic and reason, and to step away from art and creativity.
The good news is that you can train yourself to see creatively. It is just a matter of slowing down and quieting down your dominant left brain. In fact, the logical side of our character is what really hinders someone when they begin learning photography. Your eyes do not see the same way that a camera does. Your eyes are connected to your brain and that interprets what it sees. A good example of this is when you have a piece of white paper under artificial lights. You look at it and you see it as white. But take a picture of it, using the daylight white balance setting on your camera, and you will see that the image comes back amber or green if you are under fluorescent lights. We see it as white because your brain knows that it is a white piece of paper and therefore it corrects the image from your eyes. In essence your brain has auto white balance.
So if you want to find more photographs learn not to blindly follow your brain. When you look at a chair stop, take time, and look at the shapes, light, shadows, textures, and how it fits into the environment. The more that you practice this kind of seeing the more you will be able to really see the world around you.
Gary Miller
Houston Fine Art Wedding Photographer
Eye Candy and Brain Veggies
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[...] goal. I offer more insight into this idea in my posts ‘Slow Down and See‘ and ‘There Are Photographs All Around Us.’ Remember the ancient saying “It’s not the destination but the journey.” [...]
[...] I believe that one of the things that makes a photograph resonate with other people is truth. Now this may sound like a simple concept, but it is not so easy to obtain. Many photographs are just recordings of what the person saw who was behind the camera. Many are just a fraction of a second slice of life. These photos lack soul and depth and emotion. To me, they lack truth. So ‘Don’t Be a Lazy Photographer.’ This is not necessarily happening because the maker of the image is trying to deceive. I think that in most cases the photographer is genuine in their intentions, but they do not know how to record the truth, the real truth. Doing so requires that you trust your instincts and get your brain out of the equation. You see your logical brain, the left side in most people, runs the show most of the time. It wants to analyze everything, categorize everything. This is the logical side of the brain and it’s job is to keep you alive. You would not be able to successfully walk across the street without your left brain controlling you. Your creative right brain would stop to admire the beauty of a blade of grass growing up through a crack in the road, oblivious to that truck coming at you. You can read more about these concepts in ‘There are Photographs All Around Us.’ [...]