So, I’ve been meaning to talk about this for a while. You know, how I sort of got into actually seeing things before I click the shutter. It wasn’t some magic moment, trust me. Far from it. For ages, my photos were just… well, they were snaps. Point, shoot, hope for the best. Pretty dire, most of ’em.
Then I started hearing about this “photographer’s eye” stuff. I think I bumped into some of Michael Freeman’s ideas somewhere. Sounded a bit like fancy art talk at first, and I nearly switched off. You know, all that design and composition jargon. My brain just isn’t wired for that heavy academic stuff usually.
My First Clumsy Steps
Anyway, I figured, what the heck, I’ll give it a go. My old routine was just to grab the camera when something obvious happened. A birthday, a holiday, the cat doing something daft. Standard stuff. But this “eye” business meant actually looking for a photo, even when nothing much was happening. Strange concept for me back then.
So, I started just walking around. My neighborhood, the park, even my own backyard. Camera in hand, trying to see what all the fuss was about. Lines, shapes, light, all that. Honestly? My first attempts were a complete mess. I’d get home, look at the pictures, and think, “What on earth was I trying to do there?” Just a jumble. It was frustrating, I tell ya. I almost chucked it in a few times, thinking I just didn’t have “it.” You know, that natural talent some folks seem to be born with. Turns out, talent is mostly just hard graft and paying attention.
What I Started Doing Differently
But I’m a stubborn old goat, so I kept at it. Here’s what I actively started to do:
- I forced myself to slow down. Like, really slow down. Before even thinking of raising the camera, I’d just stand and look. What’s actually here? What’s interesting that I’m missing?
- I started paying attention to the edges of the shot. What to leave in, what to kick out. This was massive. Before, I just tried to cram it all in. Now, I was thinking about what not to show.
- Light! I began to notice how light changes things. Morning light, evening light, shadows. Sounds obvious, but I’d never really seen it before, not in a way that I thought about for a photo.
- Angles. I stopped just standing there like a lemon. I’d crouch down, look up, try to find a different viewpoint. My knees weren’t always happy, but sometimes the photos were.
- I specifically looked for patterns and textures. A brick wall, peeling paint, ripples on water. Stuff I’d ignored a million times suddenly had potential.
It wasn’t about having a fancy camera, either. I was doing this with my phone sometimes, or an old digital camera I had lying around. The gear didn’t make a blind bit of difference to the actual seeing part. That was all happening in my head, trying to connect what my eyes saw with what Freeman and others were talking about – trying to make sense of the visual world in a more structured way, I guess.
The Slow Shift
And you know what? Slowly, very slowly, something started to click. Not just the shutter, I mean in my brain. My photos weren’t suddenly award-winning, don’t get me wrong. But they started to look a bit more… intentional. Like I’d actually thought about them before pressing the button.
It’s like, before, I was just collecting random visual notes. Now, I feel like I’m trying to say something, even if it’s just “hey, look at this cool shadow” or “notice how this line leads your eye.” It’s more engaging for me, and I hope, sometimes, for anyone who sees the photo.
I still take plenty of rubbish photos. Buckets of them. But the process feels different. It’s more about the looking, the observing, the thinking before the shot. That’s the real takeaway I got from trying to develop a bit of that “photographer’s eye.” It’s an ongoing thing, a practice, not a destination you arrive at. And honestly, it’s made the whole business of taking pictures a lot more fun. Who knew?
