P#20 Q1D: Avoiding This Common Pitfall When Learning to See Creatively
The path to being able to see creatively has more than its fair share of roadblocks and pitfalls, and Bryan Peterson tells us how to avoid the most common of them
Not everybody is born with the ability to see creatively. Some of us have to learn it. Unfortunately, there's a mistake that's often made when people set out to do this. Bryan Peterson explains what that mistake is and how we can avoid it.
Learning to See
Bryan Peterson: That's a great question and it's evident that it plagues a lot of people -- particularly in my workshops that I teach on location. My students will all stand in a row once we arrive in any given location. I've noticed they always have a camera around their necks and their backpacks on. Usually they're the Lowepro brand. That seems to be the standard fare.
They say, "Bryan, what is it that you see here? What is it that you felt the need to stop? What is it we're supposed to be looking at?"
The first thing I say to them is real simple, "You tell me."
Their answer is, "Actually, that's why I'm here in the workshop -- to have you tell me what to see."
I say, "Yeah, I kind of figured that and I'm happy to help you. Let's go to work."
The first thing I say to them is, "I want you all to tell me how do your lenses see?" I say that over and over and over.
They're saying, "Well, I got this one here. What is this here exactly? What does that say I'm thinking?"
"No, stop right there. That's my point. As far as you know, you have a wide angle zoom and as far as you know you have a telephoto that has the word macro written on it but you don't honestly know how those lenses actually see.
As a result, when you are driving down the road, you're bombarded with all sorts of potential stuff to shoot but your vision of that has not been honed. It hasn't been refined. It hasn't been subjected to what I call lenses' choice boot camp.'"
As odd as that sounds, it's a phenomenal exercise. It doesn't require a whole lot because the power of the brain to store imagery is amazing.
In Summary
So what is the most common mistake people make when learning to see creatively? It would appear that they don't take the time to learn to see how the lens sees. If you really want to see creatively, learn what your lenses do and how they see, and then apply it to what you see when you look around you.
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