Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/02/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi LUG's: I think all of us have experienced the next scenario: We go to a gallery or museum and see people looking at a painting or photograph for around 2 secs. and then, spending a huge amount of time reading the little cardboard in which it is written the title, technique, name of the artist, etc. like if it was more important than the work itself. Why? Well, we learned early in our lives an alphabet and therefore we are able to read and concentrate on this little cards. We understand that. But no one gave us the alphabet to allow us to read visually a painting, photograph, etc. One exercise I like to give my students (School of Visual Arts) is to find pictures in magazines of a given subject, and to group them. Let's say they choose the subject "dogs". They bring 10 picts. of dogs, we look at each picture and start by taking out those in which the dog it is not the main subject, then we separate the photos in which dogs are in an urban environment from those who are in a rural one, then we go around picking the photos in which the dogs are in a close up, or middle shot, etc. Or which direction the animal is, either entering or leaving the frame, from right to left or the other way around, and so on. The main purpose of such exercises is to help the student to learn to look closely to each image. Once they learn what is the subject (dogs in this case) then they start looking at what is aft and behind the subject (foreground and background) and then when they have to go to make a photograph, they put more attention to the whole and not only to the main subject. Of course, all this in a nutshell, but it is more intricate than the example from above. >> Do you know of any exercises that help develop a photographers eye? >> They would need to be relatively focussed ideas: "shoot pictures and >> compare to others" doesn't quite cut the mustard. - -- Saludos Pericles http://www.pericleslavat.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html