I caught wind of this great video from Sean Tucker in which he states that photography is not just a technical exercise but also a visual exercise. You could know how to use all the settings in your very expensive camera (technical) but still take average photos. Likewise, you could use a terrible camera (most of the classic masters used terrible cameras by today’s standards) and still take a great photo. Check out the video below.
Some of the elements that Sean touches on include
- Developing as a human being
- reading and learning about the world around you
- living an interesting life
- staying inspired
- noticing what is around you.
But then he goes on to expand on what he means by “noticing what is around you”, with some practical suggestions for visual exercises such as
- slow down
- take out your headphones
- look at the light
- pay attention
As someone with more than a passing interesting in Street photography, I can relate to a lot of his points. I now often relish the opportunity to no listen to music or podcasts when I’m walking along. I also learnt that when I take twice as long to walk to work, I take about three times as many photos (sometimes its the difference between no photos and some photos. That’s enough.)
I also really love his final point that you need to be “careless” or as I’ve heard other people say, fail forward. Try something, maybe it sucks but you can learn from it. Every time I go out I start by taking a terrible photo as I know that things can only get better. I’m trying to encourage myself to take more photos which I don’t think will work but just to shoot it anyway because it is practice for the good shots when they do come along.
How are you going to raise your visual awareness?
There are some great challenges in this video so it’s worth picking one take away idea that you can try. Leave a comment with your answer. I’ll go first.
Chris Wilson says
I’m going to go on the street and look for specific different emotions each time I’m out. Including: Joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise