The Art of Seeing – Week 2

Quote of the day:  “Thinking sideways helps you not only to keep out of photographic ruts, but also to see subject matter you may have overlooked or not observed carefully. It enlarges your world.” ~ Freeman Patterson Photography and the Art of Seeing

The Art of Seeing

Looks like brush strokes

For those of you who are new to my blog, I’ve started taking one day a week to play with photography assignments from photographers I admire.

This week I decided to work with Freeman Patterson’s ideas on playing with camera movement, doing things like jumping up and down and pressing the shutter while jumping, swinging the camera back and forth or around after setting the timer to take a long exposure, moving camera up and down while taking a long exposure.

This turned out to be more fun than I expected.  I was outside in a wooded area at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, so my palette was muted browns, blue sky, a little green from evergreen trees, and a gray stone Japanese Lantern in the Japanese Garden.  Imagine what a very bright active background would be like if you played with camera movement.  Oh, I think I’m going to try that some day. It sounds like fun.

While I don’t plan to print any of these photos, I have some ideas for things I want to try in the future.  This type of photography feels very much like part luck and part skill since judging what shapes, colors and movements will create interesting photos takes some experience and skill and a lot of luck.  Training the eye to imagine what color, shape and movement will create is a good exercise.

Go out and play with your photography this week.  What can you do that helps you see differently?

Interesting patterns

Liquid Japanese Lantern and Tree Trunk

Shades of green and blue

Shapes and colors

Watercolor Trees and Sky

Tea House shapes