The Power of Observation

Observation is key to writing.  It also happens to be key to photography, science, art, maybe even life....

What Is Observation?

Observation is the practice of looking carefully at and noticing the details of an object, person, or event in order to learn.  Observation is the act of observing.  Observe is a verb.  It is active, not passive.  Noticing is passive. In observation you are actively looking at the details in order to learn.

Photo Friday: Five Daily Exercises to Improve Your Photography

Here are five different daily exercises you can use to improve your photography.  You may choose to do all of them each day or pick and choose as the mood suits.  I personally have engaged in all of these exercises and found them beneficial.  True confession?  I didn't do them every day, but I still learned a ton!  Enjoy!

Photography Slows You Down

I recently found this quote on photographer Nathan Grahek's website:  "Too often life seems to pass us by at an increasingly fast pace.  I am continuously inspired by photography, how it allows us to slow down and appreciate the beauty in and around all of us."  

This is so true.  Taking the time to really look at an object or person, to really be in the moment and connect, is such a wonderful thing.  Photography can be a type of meditation. 

I haven't tried this yet but I intend to.  I recently received some materials about contemplative photography that I'm really excited about.  One of the exercises is to find a subject you are interested in photographing and then sit with it for at least 5 minutes before you take an image.  Just look at it and observe.  Let the image come to you instead taking an image.   I think this might bring my photography to a new place.  Sometimes its important to be fast to click the shutter but, more often than not, it's more important to slow it down.

Here is an example of a time when I spent at least 5 minutes (probably more!) snapping away at some ferns last fall, but it wasn't 5 minutes of stillness.  Here I was taking images and searching for images.  That's not a bad thing to do, but I'm so interested in seeing the difference.

Click here to purchase.

I'll let you know how it goes.  Anyone care to join me?  I'd love to see your results!  Post a link to your work in the comments or share your thoughts.  Happy Snapping!

Park Benches and Such

My last blog was written by guest blogger, Galen Pearl of 10 Steps to Finding Your Happy Place (and Staying There).  Her amazing post invited a lot of readers and a LOT of comments!!  It was great, and I was humbled and honored by all the visitors and their great observations, but it was also a little overwhelming.  I wanted to engage with all these wonderful visitors, but found it a little impossible.  I work on a computer all day for my day job and commute about 3 hours a day.  By the time I get home, cook, eat dinner... whew!!!  All I want to do is sit on that park bench!

Vuja de

As many of you know, I'm a bit of a magpie - both literally and figuratively.  I'm a collector of things - images, ideas, tidbits of this or that.  And many of them make it back to my "nest".  Those who have seen my craft closet know the truth of this!

Window Silhouettes
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Miracle Walks and an Oops.

Yes, there is indeed an ooops.  I did something wrong yesterday.  Well, probably lots of somethings, but in this case, I'll only share one.  My post yesterday wasn't quite ready to be published.  It was supposed to be notes for a draft.  If I find a blog that inspires ideas in my head, I'll often record a thought or two and link back to the blog and then save it as a draft.

Well, this time I published it!  Ooops!

So, what's the best way to fix an oops?  One option would be to feel so embarrassed that I didn't touch the blog for a long time.  Another would be to pretend it wasn't an oops and that I intended to do it just that way.  I'm choosing the third option - to confess it and to eventually finish my actual thoughts.  I think it's important to take responsibility for things - including mistakes.

So, on to my thoughts about miracles.

Miracle Walks

I read my friend Galen's post yesterday over on her blog 10 Steps to Finding Your Happy Place (And Staying There) and she had written about miracles.  Show me the miracles!  (Instead of show me the money!)

I love the idea of that and have often relied on a variation of that myself.  I'm always looking to glean as much as I can from any particular experience.  Sometimes this requires some extensive reframing or changing my view point.  Other times it involves forcing myself to open my eyes and be in the moment.

One idea she had was a miracle walk which is actually something I do often with my camera.  I just called it by a different name - my "around the block" project.  I often go for a walk around the block with my camera in hand.  And I look, see, experience, feel, and capture all that I can that is interesting or beautiful.  Sometimes it requires a bit of searching.  And sometimes it requires a bit of motivation - like in the winter.

But, it's the times you work the hardest that the richest rewards are found.  Here is an example of an image I found on one of my own little "miracle walks".  (Speaking of miracles, the image upload is fixed!!!  Yay!!!!  Time to fix my other posts.)

And, yes, it's true...the last miracle walk I took was in the fall.  I guess I'm over due...

Do you take miracle walks?  What do they look like for you?

Barrier? What Barrier?

Yesterday, I referenced barriers in my post.  This definitely warrants more discussion.  I've countlessly uttered the words, "I can't" or "but it's too hard, too complicated, too..." or "I don't have X so I can't do Y"

I find for me, that barriers are often excuses.  I live in the land of what if and imagine all of the worst scenarios.  It's scary to risk failure.  It's also scary to risk success.

Up go the barriers.  In the days when I was teaching my job readiness program (I so miss that!) I often told my students "Don't put barriers in front of yourself."  Every time I said it, I was talking to myself as well.

I can't travel to exotic places, so I can't take interesting pictures.  I don't own a $2000 camera, so I can't take high quality pictures.  I can't afford to go to photography school, so I'll never learn all I need to know.

Barriers - every single one.  If you try hard enough, you can take interesting pictures in a Walmart parking lot.  And to prove the point, I started an "Around the Block" project where, at least once a week, I limit myself to a one block radius of my house and take at least 10 pictures.  You should join me!

You can take high quality pictures with whatever camera you have if you learn how to use it to its best advantage - and have it with you.

And who ever said there was a rule that you had to go to photography school in order to learn photography?  Sure, it would make the process quicker, but with enough practice, reading, and asking of questions, it can be done!

I would be just plain naive to insist that all barriers are simply in our head.  However, with work, creativity, ingenuity, and a bit of hootspa, I would say that most barriers can be overcome.  The question to ask is: how badly do you want it?

Everything Is Interesting When Viewed from The Right Angle

It's like the old adage that it's all in how you look at it.  Everything can be interesting when viewed from the right angle.

This image was taken with my first digital camera.  I couldn't really afford film so much any more.  And I couldn't afford a DSLR (a digital SLR where you can change the lenses and such) at the time.  And, I was having digital envy since so many people around me were beginning to embrace digital.

Anyways, I got myself a simple point and shoot digital which is no longer with us after the chip corrupted.

With my point and shoot digital camera in hand, I forced myself to grow where I could:  composition, point of view, subject matter, and plain old just getting out there.

Anyone know what this is?  (If I've discussed this image with you before, no fair guessing!)

I'll give you a few hints.  Part of what intrigued me with this object was the play of light, shadow, and reflection along the connecting bar.  I also liked the repeating pattern of the curved metal bars extending from the connecting bar.  So, after dancing around my subject a bit and shooting a few images here and there, I finally got down a little lower... around knee level.  I set myself up at the end of the connecting bar and captured those elements that caught my attention.  The result was abstract and interesting.

Any guesses yet?  Anyone notice it was outside in the fall?  Well, the fall part doesn't matter, but the outside part does.

Any guesses yet?

It was a park bench.  Yep, an every day boring old park bench.  But, it became interesting when I viewed it from the right angle.  And so goes life.  View a problem or situation or just about anything from the right angle, and it becomes interesting.

So, I challenge you this week - and myself too - to take something ordinary and boring and make it extraordinary and interesting by viewing it from the right angle.  And let me know what it was!!

Stumped

Ever feel stumped?  Out of ideas?  Staring a blank computer screen or your camera and wondering what you will do with it?  How will you fill the screen or the camera's frame?  Yep, good old fashioned writer's block.  I wonder what you would call the equivalent for a photographer?  Photographer's block just sounds silly.

Anyways, what do you do?  How do you get past that block?  How do you move past no ideas to creating something interesting and of value?  How do you go from nothing to something? 

This was my problem this morning.  I woke up with no idea of what to blog about.  Instead I checked my email, drank my coffee, surfed a bit.  Came back and stared.  Nothing.  Stumped.  Ha!  Not so fast!  That's what I'll write about!  You can take no idea and turn it into an idea!  Sometimes people will say to just start writing about anything - even about the fact that you have nothing to write about.  Eventually, just the process of putting fingers to the keys will help you get past that block.  I've been known to type over and over "I have nothing to say today"  and eventually, some random idea pops into my head and we're off to the races.

I do the same thing with my camera.  On those days I'm thankful for digital and use the delete button liberally.  But I'll just pick up my camera and shoot.  Anything.  Sometimes I wander around for a while with the camera in my hand just looking. Put the camera to my eye and look again and won't press the shutter release.  Finally, I'll see something that catches my eye and then the fun begins.

I've taken many shots of random things in my house.  Some good, some bad, some just plain interesting.  But I don't allow myself to stay stumped.  And in my mind, one idea usually leads to another...and another...and another.  Here is one of my interesting shots when I put a necklace on a light table.

So, when you're stumped, the best thing to do is something.  Anything.  Just get up and start doing and eventually you'll find that you are no longer stumped - and you may even get something interesting!

Changing Your Perspective



What we see depends on how we look at things.  Like the ever present analogy of the glass being half full or half empty.  It's both, but it's all in how we choose to view it.  I can look at being unemployed as being boring and lonely and a hardship or I can look at it as a pathway to a new opportunity and enjoy the scenery as I go along.  It's all in your perspective.

Rainy day in the Berkshires

Changing your perspective is hard.  There are exercises in photography to help to challenge yourself to not always look at things the same way - from eye level. 

Rainy day in the Berkshires viewed through a window

Get down low and take pictures of what a cat might see.  What about a bird?  Move to different sides of your subject.  Explore it.  What's inside?  What's outside?  How does it look in this season or at this time of day?  What about Backlit?  Frontlit?  Sidelit?  Which lens?  Look through something or look straight on.  There are a million different ways to change what you see.  But it lasts a moment...maybe two.  And, then, we're back to eye level.

Sometimes it takes constant effort to change your perspective and to see things differently. 

But it's often worth the effort.



F U

FU?  What?  Are you kidding?  Well, FU2!

NO!  Not THAT FU.  Fork University.

What?  Fork University?

Yes.  Fork University.

What do you study there?  Forkology?  Ha ha ha!

Well, sorta.

If you want to hone your creativity, observation, or artistic skills, then study an object in depth.  Any object.  It doesn't really matter what.  Play with lighting, perspective, angle, environment, what's included in the image, or not.  I did this with a fork.  It was sort of like forkology 101.  I'm thinking about doing forkology 102.  Or maybe spoonology.

Wanna join me at F U?