Right across the the dirt road from the sign in this morning's post.
Grafton, Vermont
3 comments:
richardplondon
said...
I recall a comment from Colin Jago on his, now sadly closed, blog - something to the effect that very often after something had caught his eye and prompted him to take a picture... he had developed the habit of turning 180 degrees straight away, and just seeing what was there to be seen, opposite to his recent shot.
He said that quite often it paid off suprisingly well. Presumably, while your picture-taking juices are still up, you are at your most receptive. Also the accidental method gets rid of some predictability.
An artificial exercise perhaps, but still interesting I think.
Richard, I don't think it's artificial at all. It's the exact opposite—it's reality. And then the magic. There's no better, no more rational, word to describe this phenomenon. There are small magic times and places, like a parking lot in Barre at 8:30 in the evening, where you just can't turn your head anywhere without finding an interesting picture. Doesn't mean it will happen at the supermarket tomorrow.
But I agree completely with Colin's 180, except that I would recommend a slow 360°.
We've stopped walking for the moment, and can suspend paying attention to our route, to crossing roads, all that stuff. The camera is now in our hand and the lens cap is off. The lens field of view "frame" is still floating in our imagination as is our enthusiasm for the light. I guess it's no wonder that the world presents itself to us more generously at such moments, since we have already gone halfway to meet it. But the way this happens is still (as you say) a kind of magic, a mystery.
Equally mysterious, is how at other times one can be SO sure "there's nothing here" as not to even admit the possibility. Perhaps for a longish, fallow, uninvolved period - during which the objective situations are perhaps not greatly different.
Resentitising? Fatigue? Or, just: one has the wrong visual head on.
3 comments:
I recall a comment from Colin Jago on his, now sadly closed, blog - something to the effect that very often after something had caught his eye and prompted him to take a picture... he had developed the habit of turning 180 degrees straight away, and just seeing what was there to be seen, opposite to his recent shot.
He said that quite often it paid off suprisingly well. Presumably, while your picture-taking juices are still up, you are at your most receptive. Also the accidental method gets rid of some predictability.
An artificial exercise perhaps, but still interesting I think.
Richard, I don't think it's artificial at all. It's the exact opposite—it's reality. And then the magic. There's no better, no more rational, word to describe this phenomenon. There are small magic times and places, like a parking lot in Barre at 8:30 in the evening, where you just can't turn your head anywhere without finding an interesting picture. Doesn't mean it will happen at the supermarket tomorrow.
But I agree completely with Colin's 180, except that I would recommend a slow 360°.
We've stopped walking for the moment, and can suspend paying attention to our route, to crossing roads, all that stuff. The camera is now in our hand and the lens cap is off. The lens field of view "frame" is still floating in our imagination as is our enthusiasm for the light. I guess it's no wonder that the world presents itself to us more generously at such moments, since we have already gone halfway to meet it. But the way this happens is still (as you say) a kind of magic, a mystery.
Equally mysterious, is how at other times one can be SO sure "there's nothing here" as not to even admit the possibility. Perhaps for a longish, fallow, uninvolved period - during which the objective situations are perhaps not greatly different.
Resentitising? Fatigue? Or, just: one has the wrong visual head on.
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