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Apogee Photo Magazine                                             

Decisive Moments   

The Art of Seeing

by Bill Miller

Why isn’t the picture you just picked up from the lab the scene you remember having taken?  Are your photographs disappointing you? In fact, the image you "see" in your mind’s eye may not be what your camera is seeing.  

I remember the first time I realized that what I had seen through the viewfinder was not what I was seeing in my finished prints.  I was on a family trip through the foothills of the Sierra Mountains during the late 1950s. I was clutching my blue plastic Savoy camera, when my parents stopped our old 1947 Dodge so I could take a picture of a mare nuzzling her foal.  It was a beautiful sight to an eleven-year-old who had been born and raised in San Francisco.  I felt the sun’s warmth on the back of my neck as I watched the tenderness of the mare toward her baby. And, as I framed the pair in the plastic viewfinder of my small camera, I released the shutter. 

My disappointment came when my film returned from the lab. I shuffled through the prints looking for that one picture of the mare and her foal.  The picture I found was nothing like the scene I remembered.  The two horses were much smaller than I remembered, and to make matters worse, they weren’t nuzzling--only standing there looking at me.  I pasted that picture into my photo album, anyway, but the memory of the lost photo has stayed with me to this day. 

I had done what most aspiring photographers do.  I hadn't taken the time to "see" what the horses were doing through the plastic viewfinder of my old Savoy.  I wasn't close enough to make the two horses the dominant feature of my image, and I hadn't checked what they were doing when I actually hit the shutter.  The moment became an epiphany for me as I realized that the photographs we make are not always deliberately made. 

The moment I sought to freeze was already lost when the mare and foal stopped nuzzling to look at me. I had squandered my opportunity by not paying close enough attention to what was happening in the viewfinder.  Like many people, I was looking at my subject, but I wasn't "seeing" it as I took the picture.   In reality, I probably still could have captured the moment if I had been more patient, because the horses might have gone back to their nuzzling if I had given them time to become comfortable with my standing there.   

Seeing is the most important part of making a photograph.  Create your photo with careful deliberation by consciously combining all of the elements needed for a good photo.  Make sure that what you think you’re seeing is really happening in the viewfinder and that the moment is a decisive one.  You'll make better photographs when you think about what's happening, and make a picture rather than simply take a picture.

Bill Miller is a photographer, teacher and writer. He is the founder of PhotoTreks and conducts workshops in the Oregon area. You can learn more about Bill and his workshops by going to http://www.empnet.com/imageworks/PTREKS/

Travel the Blue Highways of Central and Eastern Oregon as you learn photography and develop your own personal creative vision. Learn photography in locations that will inspire your creativity and excite your senses. To see what we have for you, visit: http://www.empnet.com/imageworks/PTREKS/ For stock photography of Central and Eastern Oregon visit Central Oregon Photos at; http://www.empnet.com/imageworks/COSTOCK/ Contact us at: imageworks@empnet.com
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