The Art of Seeing

 

I am currently reading a book by Freeman Patterson about the "Photography and The Art of Seeing". I am not convinced yet that this is good for me.

The content of this book about photography is easy to describe. You should learn to see the everyday things without "labeling" them. You should look at their visual appearance, patterns, emotions, rather than on what they are. If you explain the object, its purpose or its description, you lose the ability to view it as it is. 

Is this helpful? Well, it is a way to see the beauty in the mundane. It will also help to abstract from an object to its form or appearance. Moreover, it lets you discover photographic opportunities almost everywhere.

Still, I have doubts that this approach works for me. I need purpose. I need thoughts. I need ideas. The pictures in the book demonstrate the intention well. But they often do not even leave a trace of mystery, a question about what this is. They are just beautiful things. If I walked by a frame on the wall with this content, I would not stop, and maybe not even notice. 

I am too rational a person. So, let me show you the picture above in full below. The sign adds a hint on what or where this could be. The pure abstract wall does not. I admit that I like the abstract thing too. But for my mind the added content is more interesting.

Even if you do not follow the ideas in the book completely, you might take away the chances that are offered if you just see a scene with a naked eye. It is certainly what is needed to make good photographs. For me, the goal is to shut of my brain a bit more and just see the picture. I am not sure if I can. Something that makes sense is always more appealing to me.

After writing all this I think I might have come across too harsh. The pictures in the book clearly are about something, and they convey ideas. Maybe the point is that things can be more than the obvious, and that they can become something completely different when viewed through the camera and from a different perspective. 

This is most obvious in the various included macro shots. A macro always detects something that you won't see without the magnification. A normal flower becomes the living animal which it actually is.