One of my hobbies is photography and like most hobbies there is a lot to learn, but there are also lessons to be learned from the activity that can be applied to other parts of your life.
I often find myself in a unique and wonderful mindset when I set out on a photographic excursion. There are times when I head out with the intent to capture some particular subject matter. There are other times when I just head out with my camera to “see what I see”.
That is the “photographic vision” I refer to in the title – this way that I look at the world when I have a camera in hand. I get very tuned into my surroundings and begin to see things I’d hardly have noticed at other times. I will set out with the intent to just to spend a few minutes and end up wandering around for an hour or two taking a hundred pictures – and all within a few hundred meters of home.
Once I get on a roll I begin to look for and see, all kinds of interesting details, patterns, hints of color etc. in the most ordinary objects and in any season. It might be the bark on a tree trunk, a pattern of shade on the ground, the detail in a flower. I firmly believe that there is always interesting photographic subject matter around you. You just have to be in the mindset to see it.
Part one of the photographic process is capturing the image and having a vision, a sense of what it can be. The second part of the process is the creative post processing of the image, to bring out that vision.
And so that is the lesson for other part of your life… you need to get into a mindset that allows you to see the details, the patterns, the fascinating in the ordinary. You need to be able to sense what things can be – whether the “things” are your career path, a business process or an engineering design. This visioning mindset is probably easier said than done, but I find it useful to slow down, to take a deep breathe or two, and cast away preconceptions. In that way I can look at the world with the vision of a photographer – and so can you.
One Comment
I relate.