“To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”
― Henri Cartier - Bresson.
Ever since I started photography, I have been taking photographs without any formal training. There are so many frustrating, painful instances when I feel handicapped due to lack of any technical knowledge of photography and literally cry looking at the outcome of my photographs knowing deep down I have missed out something crucial. Well, that is a natural course for any creative process that involves learning, unlearning and evolving as artist.
Two days back, I attended a photography workshop on "art of seeing". Since the subject was photography, the main focus of the workshop was "seeing" before capturing images. Most
of the times one tends to interpret the world around through limited and very narrow filter of life experience, knowledge and awareness that one acquires in life. The workshop made me realise how often we are blind to our surroundings!
Much of what we see is coloured by our environment, conditioning intellect and aesthetic sense. Being a photographer needs openness and a deeper visual awareness of seeing beyond what is obvious. All one only needs is basic professional camera with which to take a good photograph and good aesthetic sense. Everything else depends on what one trains the brain/eye to see through all the five senses.
After attending the workshop, new vistas of visual perception have opened up and I am already seeing some change in the way I look at the subjects now. For someone as passionate about life as me, it is so easy to sometimes get overwhelmed with so much beauty and abundant subjects around and start clicking pictures before spending a moment or two understanding, letting the moment sink in and then capture the photograph. I think, I have learned a lot that I intend to practice in my photography.
"Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them." - Elliott Erwitt
"Beauty can be seen in all things. Seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from a photograph." - Matt Hardy
My endeavour henceforth is going to be to make good photographs. Do watch out this space!
Much of what we see is coloured by our environment, conditioning intellect and aesthetic sense. Being a photographer needs openness and a deeper visual awareness of seeing beyond what is obvious. All one only needs is basic professional camera with which to take a good photograph and good aesthetic sense. Everything else depends on what one trains the brain/eye to see through all the five senses.
After attending the workshop, new vistas of visual perception have opened up and I am already seeing some change in the way I look at the subjects now. For someone as passionate about life as me, it is so easy to sometimes get overwhelmed with so much beauty and abundant subjects around and start clicking pictures before spending a moment or two understanding, letting the moment sink in and then capture the photograph. I think, I have learned a lot that I intend to practice in my photography.
"Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them." - Elliott Erwitt
"Beauty can be seen in all things. Seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from a photograph." - Matt Hardy
My endeavour henceforth is going to be to make good photographs. Do watch out this space!
