In considering what I personally wanted to accomplish in photography this year, I have been thinking about the different skill levels needed to improve my images. Three sets of skills have often come to mind–capturing, processing, and presenting–each one having a steep learning curve of its own. This year, however, another one has been added–“seeing.”
I have noticed that some photographers who have natural skills in one or two of these areas, often don’t see the need to grow in other areas. For instance, someone who is gifted in the art of “capturing everything in camera,” might not worry so much about processing, since their skill in capturing makes it seldom necessary.
I think my own preference is to gradually gain proficiency in the four areas to balance out my own work. I thought I might use this space over the next few months to share my own ideas about each skill set and hopefully begin a discussion among HPS members. Since you can’t respond to my blog on our website, I will post these articles on my personal blog space and give you a link at the bottom here so you can add additional ideas from your own experience.
Personally, seeing is one of my weakest areas, and one I hope to develop more fully. I submit as a great resource, Freeman Patterson’s two books, “Photography and the Art of Seeing,” and “Photographing the World Around You.” Patterson is a Canadian photographer, now in his 80’s, who had influenced many of the photographers and teachers I admire. In “Photography and the Art of Seeing,” he recommends looking for design elements such as line, shape, texture, and perspective as the building blocks of a photograph along with light as the raw material of the picture. One puts together these building blocks considering dominance, balance, proportion, and rhythm to produce a photograph that has beauty and appeal.
In my own work, I have found that I move into these elements of design in somewhat of a backward manner. I see something that captures my attention, but then I must examine it further to learn what is really appealing to me. I’m not gifted enough or visually oriented enough to see what intrigues me initially. I think of the process as likened to a painter sketching parts of a subject until s/he discovers the aspects of the subject that need representing.
In that exploration, I look for the different building blocks that Patterson mentions–line, shape, texture, and perspective–paying particular attention to how the present light reveals these things and considering what light needs to be added to better represent them. At the same time, I investigate the factors of how I can visually arrange these elements in a photograph as to dominance, balance, proportion, and rhythm. It takes a while for me to discover what I see in the scene that might be unique to my own vision and how I might represent that to others. For me, this takes a long time, while for someone else more gifted in seeing, it simply appears. We often say of those individuals, “He or she has a good eye.”
I have often thought that our unique vision is as personal and individualized as our fingerprint. We visualize the same scene as does someone else, but the depth and meaning of what we see is completely personal and unique to us alone. It is this unique vision that we want to share in the photograph to others. I have often stood next to someone, both of us photographing the same scene or object and been amazed at the differences in the photograph we individually produce.
Interesting, and most helpful, Patterson gives us another book to help us learn how to see, “Photography and the Art of Seeing.” Here he talks about “Barriers to Seeing,” observing, imagining, and expressing. Each chapter explains what he is talking about and gives exercises to practice the art of seeing. I’m not sure either book is still in print, but used copies are still available on the internet. As I said before, I’ll include this article as a vehicle for our virtual discussion and you can find it on my webpage to share your own insights or suggestions there.
That’s why I think the first skill to develop in photography is the art of seeing and understanding how what we are seeing is unique to ourselves. And the good news, is that it can practice that anywhere, at any time, even without using a camera. Perhaps that is why people say that good photographers notice things that others do not.
I really enjoyed this article on Seeing Skill Set and am looking forward to Capturing, Processing, and Presentation in the future. The concept of different skill sets is very perceptive.
The comment on “seeing” being a personal and unique to an individual is insightful. Our responses to an image are a product of all of our experiences, and each of ours is unique. For example, a woman was looking at my old car city photo of pickup truck with a tree growing out of one and she said, “I love that. I grew up playing in the back of an old truck just like that.”
I have not read any of the references by Patterson. Here are a couple that I’ve enjoyed:
Learning to See Creatively by Bryan Peterson. It is in its Third Edition.
Visual Flow: Mastering the Art of Composition by Ian Plant 2013
Lookiing forward to discussions of this article.
Great input, Tom. I can’t remember if I have Patterson’s book or not, but will look for it. I have taken several courses on-line from him and read some of his books. He is an excellent teacher with his ability to break concepts down into small bits of easily learned techniques.
I do not know Plant’s book but it sounds like a good suggestion for the article I am working on now. I will send it to Jay this weekend
When we did the new website, John and I both wanted ways to respond and open dialogues for learning on the site, but we just could not find a plug-in that was both workable and affordable. I just thought of this idea last month, knowing that my blog was always open for comments. Now, I just have to monitor them better.