Learning to See – Slow Down

We’ve all read about or listened to folks talk about composition and lighting rules and guidelines. However, very often when there is a scene before us, we get lost in the vastness, and all the things we've been taught fly to the back of our minds, temporarily hiding from us in our frenzied attempts to capture the scene. I’d like to introduce challenges to help us slow down and put those guidelines to good use, keeping them at the forefront of our thought process when creating an image.

The challenges may seem simple enough, but when practiced, I believe they will benefit us in the long run. I do mean practiced, not just taking a shot to fulfill the challenge. Trust me on this. The more it’s practiced, the better the chances of it being in the forefront of your mind when deciding how to compose – and light – your shot.

May's Challenge is "Single Subject, Multiple Angles"

One of the biggest challenges in becoming a proficient photographer is learning to see the creative possibilities of the scene in front of you. We tend to take a "Machine Gun Kelly" approach, which usually results in getting a few good shots out of a thousand. "Spray and pray," if you will. After all, pixels are free, right? But editing all those images is not, in terms of time. Why not slow down and really study our subject first? I found this on the internet:

"Slow Down the Process"

The first thing you need to do is stop looking through the camera and reconnect with the world. Train yourself to slow down, maybe sit down on a bench, or in a cafe near your chosen subject, and just look. But you need to go beyond looking and to start seeing. Most of us, when we look at a scene, our eyes skip over the view in front of us, our minds taking in the important elements without really digesting everything. It's a little like speed reading. What we need to do is allow our eyes to move slowly over every detail in the scene, stopping on each element and really understanding what we are looking at. Look at the light on the element, the colors, the movement, the contrast between it and the background, everything about it. Then move on to the next element in the scene and do the same thing, but try to relate it back to the previous element. Once you have isolated all the important elements in your scene, take a look at the overall scene and identify ways to tie them together. These “tying” elements will then be arranged according to the compositional rules – look for leading lines, positioning subjects on third, negative space, and any compositional technique that can add weight to the scene. Then, and only then, it is time to put the camera up to the eye."

When I was leading workshops, I took the participants to a fairly large, flat rock on the edge of Sweet Creek and told them to really look and find five different compositions to shoot from that rock before moving on. Even compositions within compositions. I felt that slowing down and looking carefully was a good practice before barreling up the creek trail in that target-rich environment.

So, for May's challenge, "Single Subject, Multiple Angles", bring three or four different images of a single subject. Find a subject that captivates you, study it, and shoot for different images of it. Shoot high, low, wide, tele, macro, etc., whatever works. Just take your time and really study it. I think you'll be surprised at how creative you can be. Heck, maybe even throw some leading lines in the mix.

Jerry