17 October 2024

Why “No End To Seeing”

Why do I call my web site No End To Seeing?

The line itself comes from a Roger Keyes poem called “Hokusai Says.”  Hokusai was a Japanese artist who lived from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s.  He is best known for his woodcut who created the iconic print The Great Wave off Kanagawa–featured above.  The first stanza of Keyes’ ode to Hokusai reads:

“Hokusai says look carefully

He says pay attention, notice

He says keep looking, stay curious

He says there is no end to seeing”

This struck a chord with me.  It encapsulates my approach to life overall and, therefore, my approach to photography.

I’ve always been a keen observer of what’s going on around me.  I’m curious by nature, so I’m usually interested in what people are doing and how they interact and react in various situations.  I’m curious, so I look at everything.  I pay attention, I notice things others don’t. 

The things I notice aren’t always that important, but sometimes they reveal intimate connections.

For me, there really is no end to seeing. 

With my web site, I hope to bring to you some of what I see.

My approach to photography has both instinctive and intuitive sides.

The instinctive part of my approach is what I discussed above—my innate curiosity.  That’s part of me that spans further than my artwork.  My career as a marketing research consultant was built on a foundation of curiosity.  My love of travel has that same foundation.  It doesn’t surprise me that I enjoy making photos of all sorts of things–sometimes odd things or things photographed in odd ways.  

Intuition is something different.  While many people use the words instinctive and intuitive interchangeably, they are two very distinct things.

We are born with instincts; intuition comes via our experiences in life.  We don’t need to learn to NOT eat spoiled food.  When we see or smell it, we just know, instinctively, not to eat it.  But we learn that a restaurant that is empty on Saturday night is likely not a good experience.  We learn that through trial and error and/or stories we hear from others.

When it comes to photography, I probably learned the basics from books.  It was so long ago I don’t remember exactly, but back then, there was no internet to find resources from.  My sister, Andrea, is an artist.  We never had formal lessons regarding art, but I used to hang out with her when she did her various projects while in art school, so I learned about composition and expressing emotion through art from her.

I also had a couple of friends in high school who had their own darkroom.  From them I learned printing techniques and the basic chemistry of photo development.

Cameras, back when I started, were incredibly simple to master.  Lenses had a ring to adjust their aperture.  And there was a knob on the camera to adjust the shutter speed and set the ISO (called ASA back then) of the film you were using.  A fast shutter speed meant stop-action; a slow shutter speed meant motion blur.  A wide aperture meant isolating a subject against an out-of-focus background; a narrow aperture meant a photograph with more of the scene in focus.

The finesse of these controls came with trial and error.  And with the delayed feedback between when images were made on film and seeing the results from the darkroom made for a lot of error!

I would often try to keep a log of the setting used for each photograph I made so I could see what worked and what didn’t when I developed the negatives.  But that just never worked for me.  I’d keep track for a roll of film or two, then forget my notebook at home.

One thing that helped me get an intuitive understanding of exposure was the simplicity of the exposure meter in my first camera.  I usually (at least at first) used a shutter and aperture setting that resulted in what the camera considered a perfect exposure.  From that, I slowly learned how different types of scenes required veering from the camera’s ideal. 

For example, a snowy scene requires over-exposure to render the whites, white.  Photos of an on-stage performer under a spotlight, or photos of the Moon, require under-exposure to render on film (or digital sensor) what the eye sees.

But even with over 50 years of experience, I still make a lot of errors when making photographs!  But that makes the ones that turn out feel so much more successful.

My web site highlights what I consider to be my best work.  But in my newsletter and videos on YouTube, I will, from time to time, discuss some mistakes or photos that just miss the mark.

I hope you find something interesting in all this.

If you have particular questions along the way about my work in general or a photo in particular, I encourage you to let me know and I’ll discuss it here and/or on my YouTube channel.

Thank and stay curious,

Steven

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