Learning to See

Tonight in my class I am going to be teaching how to improve our seeing. I have been reading up on it all week. It really boils down to forcing yourself to slow down. To be more present and concentrate on the very act of looking.

Do you ever notice a difference in between the way you look? I definitely do. Sometimes I am so lazy I just glance. I write stuff off with assumptions about how it isn’t right. Actually it’s not that it isn’t. It’s just that becomes my excuse to self to keep moving and not stopping to create art.

But once I am in the mood and I give myself the gift of time. Well. That’s when I really start to see. I notice my mind slows and focuses. I take a photograph or two and I start to see move. Once the obvious photographs are in the camera i then move into exploring possibilities. The what if’s? As I relax and experiment I start really play, exploring possibilities.

All by actively trying to see differently, slowly and inquisitively.

I am loving this years classes in Lens Club so much already. Thier summer break projects were breathtaking. It makes me so warm and happy to be such a key element in the blossoming of the love of others in photography. Teaching is the highest reward.

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This photograph is from the Kowmung River. An incredibly special place for me for so many reasons. I named my third company after it. It actually means sore eyes. Komung was the original spelling on the first map made by the first whites through there. I do wonder how the Gunnagurra People pronounce it. Anyway that’s a story for a different day.

Trees. I saw only because I was really looking. Photograph and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2021