It's the Eye!
Saturday, June 5th 2010 @ 12:45 PM (not yet rated)
For all that you'll read my ariticles on gear and how to use it, the very first and most important requirement to be a fine photographer is to posess an "eye". This is that ability to look at our three-dimensional world and see relationships of color, light-dark, shapes, patterns, and texture, that when framed as an image tell a story without words.
Many, many people can learn to develop an eye, and it is worth the work. But there are some who simply "see" ... and only need to learn to trust their own vision, and refine it. I've had the extreme pleasure to help two of the finest photographers I know learn to trust themselves, to master the gear, and to walk the lonely road of the independent artist proudly and confidently. You "see" them everyday around here too, as I'm talking of Miriam and Cherie. It is an honor and pleasure extraordinaire to simply exist around them!
I thought I would post a couple images of the first few minutes Cherie held a pro-quality camera in her hands. Miriam and Cherie had traveled to South Carolina, where Cherie's daughter Ariel was graduating from Newberry College. After the graduation, they traveled to Charleston, and while walking the incredible streets of the south-side of downtown, among the many old and BEAUTIFUL homes there, Cherie grabbed Miriam's camera, and with only instruction as to how to zoom and how to "click", created quite a few very fine images.
Cherie talks of Miriam as a master of composition, but look at these early images from Cherie! In the one above, note the complete solidity of the composition ... every element of the image "belongs", both in the image and precisely WHERE it is in the image. EVERY little thing helps move your eye around, provides color, texture and story, and is pleasing to gaze upon.
The arch ... the little palm-tree and fronds, the gate ... the buildings, the yellow stucco against the red-orange brick, the curves against straight lines ... nothing centered, nothing off the edge ... beautiful. And we all can create a story about living there, going through that gate ...
Every once in a while a gorilla could create this by accident ... but then she turned around and a few moments later, shot this!
Leading lines, soft against hard, curves versus straights, solid white against deep color, green (cool color) against red-orange brick (warm color) ... and again, the sense of going somewheres. This is a beautiful place, but it draws us in ... it leads us on to ... what? We don't know, and we want to know ... so we keep looking. We want to go through to ... something!
There were a couple more images Cherie took within moments of these two, that are posted in an album here, and which she's sold and used in professional competitions. It was quite an eye-opener for Miriam and I, seeing what she'd captured on that trip!
I must note that Cherie was rather put out on returning from this trip. Yes, there are WONDERFUL images there, we told her. But she wanted to know where to point the camer to do more of these, and we told her ... no. We wouldn't tell her where to point that camera, ever. We'd help her with all the technical details, we'd talk theory of color, light, and composition like crazy, but we would NEVER risk limiting that eye by telling it what to do.
There's no "easy" way to get most anywhere worth getting. Even if you've got a native eye, you've got to learn how to work the camera, to see light the way the camera records it, to process your images ... so much to master, really.
But that's what we've done with so many in the past, and what all three of us offer to you. Please, use us! We'll be so thrilled!
Neil
