Photographic Vision: The Importance of Seeing

The primary creative task that a photographer engages in as he pursues his art is seeing. This may seem like a prosaic observation worthy of a hearty "Well, duh!", but I assure you that seeing isn't as easy as it sounds. Seeing, you see, isn't just looking. We all do that. And every one of us looks at scenes, every day, day in and day out, that would make beautiful photographs, but we don't see them. People frequently don't want to believe that, but it's true, I promise.

Sometimes we do see them, but we're too busy. We're driving to work, or grilling steaks, or arguing with the spouse, or taking out the trash. As we look around in the course of our chosen task, we may suddenly see a photograph, a scene that strikes us, that makes us think "wow, that would make a wonderful photograph!". But we don't have time, and we let the image slip away. It might have been the greatest image we've ever captured - or maybe not - but there's no way to know if we don't press the shutter button.



But there are other things that can get in our way. Selective blindness, for instance. This is a malady that has afflicted me since I was a child. I look at a scene, and I see it the way I want it to look - I capture the image in my mind, and see it there, clear and bright - but my mind edits out the bits I don't like. The images here are from a family picnic. I knew that the combination of kids playing (that's my daughter with some impromptu friends), water spraying, and the intermittent emergence of the sun from behind the clouds would create some excellent photo opportunities, so I strapped on my 50-135mm lens and started shooting. These two images are a couple of the shots from that group. I shot on the order of 100 pix of the various bits of the tiny water park with its splashing, flashing water, and splashing, laughing kids, and out of that plethora of images I found, perhaps, five or six that are worth anything.

Remember "selective blindness"? Above, do you see the red, arcing tube that's spraying water into the scene? That's exactly what it is. In these images, it's all right, as it adds to the composition and provides more water droplets. But in the vast majority of the images I shot, it's an eyesore, an unwelcome intruder that obscures faces, interrupts space, and breaks up compositions. And often it's out of focus, blurry and unattractive. Why is it there? Because I didn't see it. I looked at it, but I didn't see it, not as a photographer.

A photograph isn't random. A well-crafted photograph doesn't need chance or luck to provide its strength. It requires only seeing. Anyone can "get lucky" - like I said, we all look, all the time. If we shoot enough images, we may get lucky, as I did on these, and get a good image despite our lack of seeing. But if we learn to see, there's no limit to what we can do with our cameras. It's seeing that makes a photographer what he or she may be.

iPhone Experimentation

My brand-spanking-new Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 is away at Sigma getting fixed, and I've been jonesing for it. So yesterday evening I was out in the yard with the daughter, and I snapped a couple of images with the iPhone. This made me think about the whole gear vs talent debate. Is it really the hardware? Are good images actually good images by dint of the proper exposure and sharpness and color reproduction? Or is there some ability, talent, training, or what-have-you that translates into "photographer"?

I know where I stand on this debate; same place I always have. Art is, by definition, opinion. It has always been opinion, and it will always be opinion. There's no chart that discerns Art from more mundane products of human effort, no hard-and-fast yardstick by which we can measure artistic integrity, beauty, or talent. I have always main

tained that if a man says what he does is Art, then I must, in good faith, accept that it is Art. I may then discern only whether or not I appreciate it as art. I can argue that it is bad art, or that it is good art, and I can certainly argue for or against it, but I cannot in any reasonable manner proclaim that it is not art.

Ultimately the things that are judged to be great art by history are those which hold the fancy of society over a great period of time. This is what separates a fad, a fashion, from a great work of art. It's not simply that people like it; it's that people like it beyond its contemporary milieu. If someone is humming "Eleanor Rigby" one hundred years from

now, I think it will be safe to say that The Beatles created great music, not just popular music. If someone regards Jackson Pollock's work with reverence in the year 2100, I will stand corrected.

How does all this relate to the hardware vs. talent debate? Well, it's because these things make it painfully obvious to me that cameras are tools, just as paint brushes and guitars and chisels are. They create nothing without an actor, without a spark, and ultimately their record is not a mere collection ofpixels, but a record of the intent - however whimsical - of the photographer, whether that photographer is Robert Mapplethorpe, Leonard Nimoy, or your old aunt Jeanie. That image is art. Good art, bad art, nonsensical art, ridiculous art - but it is art.

The modern digital camera has certainly democratized photography in a way nothing else has. Now anyone can have their own digital darkroom for a ridiculously small quantity of money, and the cost per shot has plummeted. Thus, almost anyone can produce a few good photographs over time by sheer numbers. The shotgun approach, if you will. Take enough pictures, point that camera at enough things, and a few are bound to be worth noting. This is a good thing, not a bad one. It does have the unfortunate side effect of making many who have created such 'lucky' images believe that it's simply having the right hardware, because they didn't put any effort into the image. Let's face it; you can't accidentally draw a wonderful charcoal rendering of Mt. Rushmore, but it's quite possible for events to conspire in your behavior as you record exactly the right light and composition as you pop off your seven-hundred and twenty-fifth vacation picture.

No matter how you cut it, though, I hold to my mantra, in every aspect of life. If you give a tool, no matter what quality, to someone with talent, the result of its use will be better than that of someone with no talent. Sounds generic, I know, but it is generic. Just for photographers, though: If you give any camera to a talented photographer, and the same camera to your Aunt Jeanie, when the memory card is full, the pictures from the photographer will be visibly better images. Now, better Art? Only time can answer that question.