We live in a visually driven culture.
Sometimes I try to take a picture of my garden. I can never capture what I want to capture when I step back to get a landscape view. Trying again and again, I produce something that simply fails to pick up the varied colors of the flowers. Or the photo makes everything look too far apart and spread out. Or the house behind the garden is distracting, or the air-conditioner unit forms an eyesore.
Interior pictures are likewise frustrating. I often find that the ceiling becomes a major impediment to my photo goals. Why, when I never notice the ceiling when I'm in the room, is it all over the pictures I take?
Even at the beach, I struggle to capture with my camera what I see with my eyes. I know there is an aspect of photography where you should simply look through your lens and take your picture when you are happy with what you see in the viewfinder. But don't other people, besides me, sometimes have a gut desire to capture something they see with their eyes when they are not looking through their camera?
As I ponder the difference between what we really see and what we can photograph, I am concerned about how much of our life is spent chasing picture on our phones these days. Oh, if we could only remember that what we see in those internet photos does not translate directly to real life.
We used to know a photographer named Holly. She took the most beautiful pictures of people. I don't think she had much, if any, formal training in photography, and she wasn't what you would call a tech whiz with her equipment, although she understood it well enough. I marveled at how good her pictures were, trying to figure out her technique, and one day I realized what is was. She loved people and saw the beauty in them. Her own exuberant positivity and openness and kind-heartedness came through in her pictures. She felt authentic affection for the people she was photographing, and enjoyed catching them at their best.
So there is sometimes an aspect of reality in the photographic image. Sometimes a photograph realistically displays the heart of the photographer.
Sometimes. Don't start quoting that the next time someone close to you takes a terrible picture of you by accident. I love my gardens, but I really struggle to get good pictures of them.
