The art of seeing - 091209

As the ice was melting on this hillside, the delicate pattern of semi-clear ice caught my eye. Here's what I saw and here's what I made. ©Carol Leigh

The art of seeing -- 091130

My time on the beach yesterday was spent mainly dodging incoming waves. Although the tide was past its height and on the way out, it wasn't going out as quickly as I had anticipated. My room for error was just a few feet between the waves and the bluffs, and I had to jump up onto some rocks from time to time, so I took a few shots and then left. Here's what I made, and then you can see what I saw. Wish I knew more about geology. ©Carol Leigh

The art of seeing - 091125

There's a beach down the road (maybe a half-mile to a mile away) that's accessible only at low tide. So yesterday morning I followed the tide out, seeing what I could find. I seem to be on a roll with all this beach stuff, and each beach is different, offering different photo possibilities. Once crabbing season begins (on the 28th), I've got a different beach project in mind that I'll share with you when the time comes, but in the meantime, I'm photographing rocks and sand.

Marianne Jensen has been finding faces in rocks and posting them over at her blog, so I thought of her when I found this "parrot." Here's the shot, and then here's how it looked as I walked past. See? It takes a weird mindset to notice little things like faces in rocks . . . and I know I'm not insulting Marianne when I say that!


A photo that looks sort of mountainous is actually part of a sandy cliff, where the sand has dripped and slumped downward. You can see the photo and then how the scene actually looked.

And finally, yet another rock abstract, something that I extract from a wall of rock -- all at eye level. I took about five different photographs from this one section of the bluff face.

Half a mile from home. And it's taken me what, about 8 years to discover it? Sheesh. ©Carol Leigh

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The art of seeing - 091124

Here's the overall scene and here's what I made out of it. And I KNOW there are a lot of you thinking, "I'm finding the overviews much more interesting than the abstracts!" Yeah, I know . . . I'm weird. ©Carol Leigh

The art of seeing - 091123

I found a very cool section of rock today on the beach -- lots of perfectly round circles. I don't think this is man-made, looking more like a tafoni rock sort of thing. Anyway. Here's what I created, and here's the overview of what the scene actually looked like. 18-55mm lens used on both. Neat, huh? ©Carol Leigh

The art of seeing - 091121

I am constantly going through my photos, seeing old stuff, new stuff, re-worked stuff all the time. I also see what I haven't yet processed, and this is one of those instances. I was walking on the beach this past April and found a cool rock with all sorts of holes in it. I took a photo of the rock and then stepped back to take an overview so that you can see what I saw.

Some photographers see the big picture and have trouble zooming in on the details. My problem is just the opposite: I see the details and the big picture usually eludes me. In fact, just after I wrote this, I went online and noticed someone had photographed the number "28." I recognized the metal numbers as being the ones you see on telephone poles (which I photograph a lot). And then I laughed. I would have photographed the "2" or the "8," but wouldn't have thought of photographing "28!" See? I don't see the big picture. ©Carol Leigh

The art of seeing - 091110

A large tree washed ashore and was resting on the beach. I liked the rich colors and the texture of the bark, so zoomed in tight using a 70-200mm lens to create an abstract image that has no sense of scale. I took an overview as well, to help you see what I saw. ©Carol Leigh

The Art of Seeing - 090510

The first photo is an abstract image of rock patterns on the bluffs at the high tide line. The second photo shows you what the bluffs look like and what, in particular, caught my eye. The third photo, the feather, is a rather boring shot of a crow feather. But I shot it knowing that I would incorporate it later in a photomontage, which you can see here. It was a good morning, and I walked for miles. ©Carol Leigh

The Art of Seeing - 090503

This morning I visited a beach just south of us, one I've never been to, figuring it was just big and flat and boring. Well, it pretty much was exactly that! But I found a few things to shoot, including the tree-framed pathway leading down to the sand. The next photo, with no sense of scale, looks like huge, rocky cliffs, but in reality is part of a big log that washed ashore, as you can see in the second photo. The next photo could be a macro photo of the scales on a butterfly's wing, but is actually wood grain in yet another washed-ashore log. There's always something to see, something to photograph, when we really begin looking. My lens du jour? A 28-135 IS with a polarizing filter on a Canon 50D body.

The Art of Seeing - 090430

Although I posted this photo of two U-bolts a couple of months ago, today I found the "before" photo I'd taken of the entire box o' bolts. Is the close-up just a crop of my "before" photo? No. I shot the box first and then zoomed in on what I thought was the best part of the scene in front of me. Rust. Who knew how colorful it could be? ©Carol Leigh

The Art of Seeing - 090428

Walking along the beach yesterday I saw a nicely striated boulder and especially liked the little crack angling down. You can see what I saw in the first photo. In the second photo you can see what I made out of it.

I included a little strip of sand at the bottom to sort of anchor my shot, filling the frame mostly with the diagonal lines of the boulder and the crack. The crack is the focal point and I placed it in the left third of the frame. From there your eye travels right and upward, following the striations in the rock. The crack angles in at one angle, while the layers of rock angle out in another, creating tension. And heaven knows we all could use a bit more tension in our lives! ©Carol Leigh

The Art of Seeing - 090418

See the rocks with sand on them in the middle left of the top photo? That's where the close-up comes from. Good stuff -- color, lines, and texture. Plus a walk on the beach is always fine. ©Carol Leigh

The Art of Seeing - 090415

There are bluffs above the high tide line that have brilliant colors and amazing mosaic-like patterns in the rocks and on overcast days the colors practically glow. No one ever walks up here! The first photo shows you what I created out of a little patch of rock and the second photo shows you what I initially saw. We photographers, we "visualists," notice things like this, we find things, frame things, and then display them to the rest of the world saying, "See? See!" ©Carol Leigh

The Art of Seeing - 090412

The top photo is typical of what I see at low tide on the beach. Little rivulets of water come from the bluffs and make their way to the sea. Along the way, patterns emerge in the sand. Looking closer, in the next two photos, I isolate a few patterns, filling my frame with horizontal and diagonal lines or a series of jagged slashes. There's no sense of scale. The second photo could be of sand dunes for all we know. And the third photo an aerial view of some land formation from 35,000 feet. The world is at our feet if we just take the time to look. ©Carol Leigh

The Art of Seeing - 090411

One of the more difficult things to teach is how to see. What goes on in a photographer's brain that enables him or her to casually look at something and immediately (or maybe not so immediately) see that yup, there's a photo there? What I'm planning on doing from now on is to try to show you, whenever possible, what I see and then what I've made from that scene.

In this case, the top photo is what I see when I walk along one of my favorite beaches here on the Oregon coast. I've had people come up to me and ask what the heck I'm shooting. To them, it looks quite ordinary. And I can understand why --this is the high tide line, where the water meets the bluffs twice a day, and it's usually strewn with rocks, kelp, broken shells, etc. To me, however, it's a gold mine. The cracks in the rocks and their saturated colors can keep me busy for a long time. So from the rocks that you see in the top photo, here are two photos I made.

The role of a photographer is to show people what they might otherwise miss. And to do so in an artistic way.

This is my first go at this "here's what I saw/here's what I made" concept. Please let me know if you find it worthwhile. Thanks! ©Carol Leigh