Experiencing Your World: Page 2
Now I want you to think of how this plant looks to the average person. And I want you to think about the possibilities of your explaining this plant through photography to someone. The point I want to get across here is that this perceived decorative plant is much more visually interesting then is current cosmetic placement.
As a photographer you can highlight this plant in all of its beauty, you can hide it’s ugly spots, drown out the background and focus on rare colors. You can exaggerate the color brilliance and showcase the uniqueness of the plants lines. Virtually all of these things are lost when all the observer uses is a quick glace to notice the plant.
The purpose of this exercise is to show you that there is beauty in even the most mundane and uninteresting things around you. Your first day as a photographer you don’t need to go outside to start your photography portfolio. You have countless props and possibilities within the 4 walls of your home. You just need to learn how to think like a photographer. If I showed you the following picture you would probably think it’s pretty lifeless and dull.
It truly looks as if nothing can be done to make this picture look beautiful. It’s not an ugly picture necessarily but it’s easily forgettable. Nothing pops out at us, nothing interest is and therefore we can easily discard such an image as uninteresting and unprofessional.
However, as a photographer you can bring life to such a photograph by exaggerating ideas and concepts, changing your perspective, digitally altering the background or simply getting in closer. As a photographer you can find the following shots within the items displayed in the previous photograph.
Now what I want you to do is to play with photography without using your camera. I want you instead to create a frame using your hands which will simulate the 4 walls of a photograph. As humans we have great peripheral vision and can see many things around us at one. However, this is simply not possible for a camera. A photograph is restricted to it’s 4 walls. This is why often photographs fail to capture the beauty of what the human eye sees. I’m sure we’ve all tried to explain one of our photographs as less beautiful than the actual events that were taking place. For most people it’s commonly understood that photographs detract from the beauty of the intended shot.