The Art Of Observation

One of my favorite things about photography is looking at the work of other photographers and learning from their body of work and their creative vision.  I’m most naturally drawn to work that reflects my own style and view of the world, but I learn the most from studying photos that are completely different from anything I would shoot.  Patrick Onofre’s recent column, “What Is Photography,” got me thinking a bit more about my own style, why and how it developed, and what others might be able to learn from my own experiences.

Photography is an unforgiving medium.  I can’t say how many times I’ve taken a picture of scenery that took my breath away only to look at the picture later and notice a weed, a piece of garbage, or some other blemish that completely escaped my attention in the field.  I’ve learned over the years to pay much closer attention to what’s in front of my camera before I snap the shutter.  Technical proficiency is not nearly as important to the art of taking good pictures as is the need to develop a keen sense of observation.

For me, photography is about taking a scene and distilling it into its most essential elements.  I’ve taken enough bad photographs to often know ahead of time whether my initial idea of a subject will work.  If not, I ask myself what it is that attracts me to the place; why do I really want to take the picture?  A dazzling tree bedecked in its gorgeous autumn colors will usually not be enough to yield a dazzling photograph.  I almost always have to dig deeper.  I took the following photographs on an outing to a local cemetery when the colors were at their peak.

The carpet of leaves was thick on the ground; the air was chill and the colors were fabulous.  It didn’t take me long to notice this leaf stranded on a large stone.  I began shooting it from one perspective and the results were ok, but that was all.  I started moving around the stone, shooting from different perspectives.  Suddenly I had it: the lone leaf nestled in the crevice of cold stone against a backdrop of fiery autumn bokeh.  Experimentation is a reciprocal ingredient in the observation process.  Observation begets experimentation, which in turn begets further observation and discovery.

This photo turned out to be a slightly different take on fall colors.  I found this picture because I was chasing the light.  The late afternoon sunshine was streaming through the trees leaving shafts of warm light across the thick leaf carpet.  As I began shooting this wonderland the sun went behind a very large cloud, so I started looking for other options in the vicinity while I waited for the light to come back.  I eventually noticed that from the ground level I might be able to make the cemetery look like a forest and started playing with that idea.  This turned out to be one of the few perspectives that would hide the stones, as well as the huge industrial building across the street.

This shot is another result of the time I took waiting for the light to return.  I was already on the ground shooting my “forest” pic, so I started looking around for other possibilities while I was down there.  One of my favorite things about autumn is thick layers and piles of leaves.  I decided that the best way to shoot the leaves surrounding me on the ground would be to find an individual leaf that stood out on its own and focus on that.  This wonderful maple leaf caught my attention and I started snapping away.  It was only after I took several frames of this leaf that I noticed the leaf behind it, and I worked that into the picture to give a natural feeling of repetition and depth.

When I go on photo walks, I most often look for colors, shapes and themes to shoot rather than objects.  Had I started my photo walk intent on capturing “fall colors” or tombstones, I would have likely missed all three of these compositions.  Don’t allow initial ideas to be so rigid that they form mental blinders and hinder your creativity.  A camera records such a minute slice of the world at any one time that there are countless possible photographs to be taken within any given locale, no matter how small.  It’s up to you the photographer—the artist—to have eyes to see the possibilities.  Then recording them will be a snap.