{"id":2800,"date":"2013-07-10T20:02:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T20:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/?p=2800"},"modified":"2013-07-10T20:57:41","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T20:57:41","slug":"the-diluted-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/the-diluted-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"The Diluted Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

You shouldn\u2019t overshoot. It\u2019s like over-eating, over-drinking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was from a “lost” (until recently) interview done with Henri Cartier-Bresson back in 1971. C-B’s explanation was that “over<\/em> is too much, because by the time you press, you arm the shutter once more, and maybe the picture was in between”.<\/p>\n

He basically said that photographers should spend more time “seeing” than shooting…and I wholly agree with that. I think his explanation for “why” may substitute a practical reason for a more insightful one.<\/p>\n

I believe part of being a photographer is developing a critical eye. A “critical eye” means an effective mental mechanism for knowing when a good or interesting photo opportunity is present<\/em>. Such a “critical eye” is developed through experience…the experience of having taken both effective and ineffective photos, and learning what elements or factors were present that led to the effective ones.<\/p>\n

I think there’s a worse repercussion from indiscriminately taking photos than not being ready to take the “good” photos: it’s disconnecting the process of taking\/making photographs from intentional or calculated seeing.<\/p>\n

When critical seeing and the act of making photos get dis<\/strong>connected, you get a flood of mediocre and\/or “garbage” photographs. And having lots of mediocre or garbage photos around you tends to “dilute” your critical eye and torpedo your self-confidence as a photographer (e.g, you may start thinking you don’t have “it” anymore–that you’re “washed up” and so forth). You end up with a diluted eye<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There are two important parts to effective photography:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. developing and maintaining a “critical eye”<\/li>\n
  2. securely connecting this “eye” to the act of taking and then (later) editing your photos<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Typically, photographic magic doesn’t just happen, you have to make<\/strong> it happen.<\/p>\n

    People can get lucky taking thousands of photos and ending up with a few winners. But making photographic success into a numbers game doesn’t reward skill; it rewards sheer physical effort and expensive equipment that can acquire a huge number of frames\/sec. It’s no wonder that people sometimes credit a photographer’s success with the quality and price tag on the equipment s\/he owns.<\/p>\n

    Critical seeing is a reward in and of itself because it’s a recognition of something good happening, whether you happen to have a camera to capture it or not.<\/p>\n

    Connect this recognition with the act of photographing, and you’ve got a partially controllable and rewarding means for communicating ideas and perceptions as a skillful and able\u00a0Photographer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
    \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>
    \nVisit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio<\/a> at SaatchiArt.com!\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
    ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    You shouldn\u2019t overshoot. It\u2019s like over-eating, over-drinking. This was from a “lost” (until recently) interview done with Henri Cartier-Bresson back …<\/p>\n

    Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[231,230,65],"class_list":["post-2800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-critical-eye","tag-overshooting","tag-photography"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2800"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2817,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800\/revisions\/2817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgracemartin.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}