What do you do when you’re walking down the street?

Throughout the years I’ve been asked how did I “see” a particular shot?  Meaning how did I know to compose a shot in a particular way?  Lots of artists and photographers will talk to you about balance, colors, lines…etc.  And, for the most part, they are right -  a pleasing photo has to have many different elements to make it work.   I’m a strong believer in training the eye.  When I walk down the street I have a tendency to look at everything around me and imagine how it would look in a photo.  I ask myself how would I take that shot? What crop would I use?  What would make this shot unique? What treatment would I use when printing?  I look at people,  faces, buildings, shapes, etc.  Keep in mind I’m doing all of this without my camera in tow….I do this when I’m walking to get a cup of coffee or to the grocery store.  Who knows, if you’ve been to Chicago I might have been  that dude who was staring at you (but not in a creepy way).  Visualization is  a key element in honing your skills.  Tomorrow I’m going to talk about flow.  Artistic flow is every bit as important as visualization. In fact,  artistic flow is probably more important to me than visualization in much of my photography (more on that tomorrow).  Until then give your “photographic eye”  a few challenges…ask yourself what about this shot?  Or what if I cropped in tighter?  What if I laid on the ground?  You get the picture.  Have fun!  John

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 10:47 am. It is filed under General and tagged with ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.