Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/08/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Joe, Wonderful question and in light of all the recent "controversy" well phrased. Here's my approach. First, I read constantly. I am always trying to understand and increase my awareness of the human condition. Whether this is through magazines or literature I feel it helps broaden my awareness of what it is to be human.=20 Second, I absorb any and every image I can. In particular, I try to look at a photo book at least once a night, especially in the summer sitting on the porch. If you really want to see what sensitivity of vision is look at the powerful images that Cartier-Bresson or Inge Morath or Robert Frank or Sebastian Selgado or Larry Trowell or a host of others pull out of everyday life with their Leicas. Third, and I think this is particularly relevant to your question regarding travel vs. that which we have become most familiar with. I found the same situation when I travel to Europe. I am agog with images just waiting to be made. They are everywhere. So I asked myself what I can do in my own environment, my own culture, as a person with some visual abilities and sensitivity to depict that culture. I now keep the camera with me everywhere. I have been working, visiting every summer festival, county fair, fireman's carnival that I can. If you place yourself in situations that you find familiar you will find truth and beauty wherever you look. Then it's up to you to work on and improve your technique so that you can best record your feelings, reactions and perceptions.=20 Cartier-Bresson had been inspired by a book "Zen and the Art of Archery" written by Eugene Herrigel in the early 50s. Herrigel elaborates on his time of study with a zen master learning archery. What he comes away with (and this is oversimplification) and what Cartier-Bresson found parallel to his photographic approach is a unifying of subject and object. As in you and what you're photographing. The arrow (or camera) can serve as a bridge between the two. What Herrigel also found is that you have to forget you. You have to become part of the process and forget the goal. This is what I strive for. I react to my feelings. The camera is preset. It rises to my eye as in this evening when I saw the two older men sitting at a table talking animatedly. I move slowly. I think myself invisible. The shutter releases and the camera returns to my side. And with luck and everything else I hope I will have a photo that transcends just two guys talking and reaches some level of human understanding, a sharing of the great dance of life, a moment of truth that we all can relate to, that pauses us to think and become part of the photo. When I teach photography to 6th graders (once a year) I teach them awareness and seeing. This year we won't even use cameras, just cropping squares and we'll walk around looking through them. Just being aware. Just seeing. Just reacting to our feelings and emotions. A Leica doesn't get in the way of that when I take it with me. Whew! - --=20 Carl Socolow "Sometimes the wrong thing is exactly the thing you should do." Garrison Keillor. Joseph Codispoti wrote: >=20 > As a first challenge (albeit a small one) for Curt Miller, or anyone wi= lling > to comment, I would like to know what exercises photographers who "can=92= t see > the forest for the trees" employ . In other words, how can one keep sh= arp > in spotting a potential photograph among the mundane. > When I travel I find all I see to be exotic while in my home surroundin= gs I > tend to became blase at seeing the same haunts day after day. >=20 > Joseph Codispoti