Stealing With Your Eyes
Last week when we were shooting photos (two teenagers, freezing cold weather, shooting all afternoon, pix forthcoming), I was asked about how to take a good picture. We went over the usual stuff – you know, composition, color etc. Until it hit me. What I was being asked was not about the “golden cut” or “rule of thirds”. I was being quizzed about how I find my topics, how I select my shots, how I SEE.
My answer had to be vague. You either see or you don’t. My dad, himself a VERY accomplished painter, calls it “stealing with your eyes”. I do it all the time. Even though right now I might be trying to find time to go out and shoot, then find time to go through what I have shot, I steal with my eyes all the time. I’m not talking about plagiarizing other people’s work. I’m talking about being aware of your surroundings. Or, as my dad likes to say, some folks look, others see.
Of course the challenge will be on how to capture that with the camera, which is where the technical aspect comes in. If you don’t have enough experience, more often than not your pictures won’t turn out the way you envisioned simply because you didn’t know how to capture what you saw on a technical level. By the same token, a good photographer will always be willing to experiment. And in the digital age, that’s virtually guilt-free.
And I’ve been in situations more than once where two people photographed the same thing and came away with two totally different takes on it. That’s the exciting thing about it. Your way of stealing with your eyes will be different than mine. I just wish more people would have that awareness. But then, maybe not. 
