Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Good Advice 0001

Be aware of what you throw away. Notice every time you dismiss something that catches your eye, or reject something that appears to be useless or repulsive. Every variety of light is the perfect light for some subject. The work of photography is finding the subject that is suited for the light we have to work with. Everything has a hidden side. Your task is to find the blessing.
Photography is about going back to the good places, looking again at what you have seen a hundred times already. Don't think you have seen anything worth seeing just because you've looked it over once or twice. Anything worth seeing once is worth looking at again. Go look. See what happens. It's your arrogance that lets you get by with thinking you know what you will see and it won't be much. Allow yourself to be fooled. Again and again.

What we see is a function of how we look, of what we look at, of what we look for, of the filters we place between ourselves and what's there, before us, waiting to be seen. We have to be receptive to receive what is being offered to us.