The Art Of Seeing In Photography

graphy is essentially about how we as individuals seeone’s soul and how you view the world.
things, and then being able to capture that moment inThe ability to better see can be developed by
time when we saw something, via the use of apracticing it. Don’t just look, but study your
camera. Sure the technical know how of how tosurroundings, really observe what is before you, and
operate the camera is important, but the mostlook into it in detail. Take time to look up into the trees,
important thing in image capture is seeing the image inand to look down at the ground. Turn around from
the first place. There is a strong analogy in this regardwhere you have come from. Things usually look very
with artists, who also need to “see” theirdifferent from the opposite vantage point. Life is a
subject matter before they can copy it onto canvas.journey, not just getting older. Take time to really see
Photography, and in particular landscape photographythe beauty along the way, and if you can, capture
is so dependent upon the photographer’s abilitythose magic moments with your camera to share with
to see and visualize the final result before he or sheothers.
presses the shutter release button. ThisTo photographically capture what you see is not
“seeing” is what really separates a pointalways easy, but the key is to keep in your mind the
and shoot photographer from the serious amateur orfinal image you want to capture, either on screen or in
professional. Once all the technical aspects are takenprint. This can often mean visualizing the cropped
out of the equation, the only real difference betweenscene after it has been captured by the camera,
individual photographers is how well they see theirbecause the camera’s format doesn’t
subject matter.really do justice to the scene. You need to master and
Seeing is the ability to look well beyond the clutter, andovercome any technical difficulties that get in the way
be able to see the important from the unimportant. It isof a great image.
being able to look into a scene and crop out all theLandscape photography without good composition will
irrelevant areas both mentally and then with yournever leave a lasting impression on people, and will
camera. For what you leave out of an image is just asusually imply the image was captured without too
important as what you include. Without this ability tomuch effort or attention to detail. Composition is as
see, no photographer or artist will be able tomuch about what we leave out of an image, just as
consistently observe and capture really interesting andmuch as it is in what we include.
captivating images. It really is what photography is allTo quote the Dali Lama, “many people look, but
about. It is displaying to others how one sees thevery few see”, and it so true.
impact and beauty in things. In a way it is displaying