Monica posted on April 24, 2008 09:00 :: 1964 Views
I have a new pair of eyes.
They look the same. They’re still green. They still peer through glasses. But now they see differently than they once did. I now have photographer’s eyes.
I have a friend who once told me he was going out to look for fall photos. He got in his car, drove up and down the roads, came home, and told me he didn’t find anything.
“Nothing caught my eye,” he said. “Nothing was worth stopping for.” He didn’t have photographer’s eyes.
The eyes of a photographer work best at slower speeds. They see more when they’re not whizzing past the world at breakneck speed. They might require a person to stop, get out, and walk. They always mean not just looking, but SEEING; not just sweeping the landscape hurriedly for obvious beauty, but noting small details, interesting shapes, unusual textures, subtle colors, the juxtaposition of shapes.
Winter is a good example. The glorious colors of fall have faded away. The leaves have dropped, shriveled and blown away into yesterday. All we’re left with is bare, naked trees scratching stiffly against the sky. The world becomes black and white, and our eyes can dull along with Nature’s palette.
Unless, that is, we stop merely looking and start seeing. Bare tree bones have a poetry and grace all their own, like the cheek bones of a classic model that look good from any direction. Tree branches twist and turn and dance in shapes normally camouflaged by leaves, speaking a language of pantomimed simplicity. Some of the bluest skies occur in the winter, and a white birch tree’s skeleton against that royal azure proves that less is more.
A springtime beach can also be overlooked. The water’s cold, the grass along the edge is last year’s stiff and brown leftovers. No one wants to beachcomb when breezes are still sharp and the sun is stingy with its warmth.
I was on the beach just a week or so ago. I had waders, a heavy coat, and no reluctance to get belly close to winter’s flotsam along he shore. I found grains of sand containing all the colors of last year’s bouquets, rocks placed in artful arrangements by nature’s whim, and sun reflecting off the dappled water’s surface like gold dribbled on silk.
If I had swept that beach with a cursory glance, I’d have found nothing—and nothing is what I’d have deserved. Instead, I stopped and looked for what I’ve learned would be waiting—and found my reward.
Walking to work this week, I was surrounded by leafless trees, dead leaves, snow mold and sidewalks gritty with ice-repelling gravel. None of spring’s reputed delicate beauty was evident. It looked crusty out there, like the heels of someone who’s worn sandals too long without benefit of a good soak and soothing lotion.
Experience had taught me, though, that under those desiccated leaves, little green things were struggling to be born. I slowed and looked closely, and was rewarded by the smallest flash of color, the purple and gold of just-emerged crocus buds squinting at the sun. I dropped my purse and briefcase and reached for the little PowerShot that’s with me always. I knelt on the mound of earth beside the sidewalk, leaned down on one elbow, angled to put the sun in just the right location, and peered eye to eye with this tiny harbinger of spring. Compared to the big world around it, it was but a speck of life, and could so easily have been overlooked. Instead, it became the punctuation mark that gave the language of my day clearer meaning.
However, with photographer’s eyes, even those desiccated leaves would have provided unexpected beauty. Nothing that nature serves up is unpalatable to the eye, when that eye is expecting to find hidden treasures.
Photographer’s eyes can’t be bought, but they can be developed. Just grab your camera, take a slow walk anywhere, and SEE.
Live Life Joyfully,
Monica Isley
View more of this author's photography.
Monica Isley is a former newspaper reporter/columnist/photographer who once stalked the Lake Superior shoreline in northeastern Minnesota, camera in hand. She now lives in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., where the summers are warmer and the winters are milder than she's used to, but where photographic prey is just as available. Besides this column for JustNorth, she writes a blog called Monica's Pen at http://monicaspen.wordpress.com/
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