SEE WITH YOUR IMAGINATION, NOT YOUR EYES
As strange as it might sound, I see with my imagination, not my eyes. I look with my eyes but see with my imagination.
A non-photography analogy might help to explain what I mean. We are all familiar with folks that buy what, to us, are dilapidated houses. We even wonder, "Why?." They see what we see, but they also see what we don't see: the potential. That is, how that dilapidated house could look, if......
In the same way, I can see a rather generic, non-descript scene or subject and see its potential. I call it extracting, as I discuss in my book, Right Brain Photography. I can see a picture within a picture. It requires looking beyond the obvious. It requires un-labeling. Un-labeling allows me to see, not objects, but colors, shapes, forms, etc.
I offer my Right Brain Photography ZOOM classes through the following OLLI programs (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute): University of Hawaii, University of Utah, Colorado State University, Pittsburgh University, and Vanderbilt University.
I have four examples to share with you today. For all, I will share a "before" image (what my eyes saw) and an "after" image (what my imagination saw. I will also explain how I created the "after" images.
The image on the left is what my eyes saw. As I scanned the scene, I noticed some cute little white flowers. They're barely visible below the rock that's between the two boulders on the left. At first, they didn't impress me much. They were just cute little white flowers. But then my right brain kicked in and imagined those little white flowers moving.
I set up my tripod several feet away from the flowers, on the right side of that pond. I zoomed into the flowers with my telephoto lens. I loosened my tripod head. I set my camera for a slow shutter speed (1/5 of a second) to allow me to slowly move my camera. The resulting image made the flowers appear to be moving. I saw with my imagination.
Look at the scene on the left. It's in a butterfly pavilion--lots of large plant leaves and steel beams. I saw some dainty but beautiful pinkish flowers (on the lower left). I also saw a couple of large ladybug-type decorations with lots of red on them. My imagination saw a straight line between those flowers and the red on the ladybugs. My color theory from my former art days saw a good blend between the pink (flowers) and the red (ladybugs). I saw a close-up of a white/pinkish flower with a red backdrop. I walked up to those flowers on the left and aimed my camera up toward the red part of the ladybug decoration. Voila! What I imagined looked good in real life.
While walking to the car after lunch in my hometown, I saw this rather mundane scene. However, my imagination saw art: color and shapes. I asked my friend who was with me at the time to hold up my large piece of black material behind a couple of those plants. I carry that large piece of material in the car at all times. The resulting image is on the right.
Feel free to ask me any questions regarding the concept of seeing with your imagination.
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