What do I see? What does it remind me of?

Last weekend I had the rare pleasure of bumping into Stuart. Stuart always utters words that encourage me to think anew.

Over a decade ago we were founding members of the Bradford on Avon Photography Group. He was passing our home, camera in hand, looking for unseen moments. We inevitably started talking about photography and revisited a conversation from years past about how we could better critique each other’s photos in the group.

He had learned from Sarah J that we only need respond to two questions on seeing an image.

• What do I see?
• What does it remind me of?

Simple.

Our conversation was timely. That morning I had read Craig Mod’s excellent article Looking Closer is Everything. He uses the example of an image of Kambara on the Tōkaidō Road in Japan and how the writer John McBride “looks and we see.”

Another good example is The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand. 100 photographs accompanied by an essay by Geoff Dyer in which he ruminates about what he sees happening in each photograph.

And this article in the New York Times takes a close look at Robert Frank’s ‘Trolley — New Orleans.’

It also brings to mind a conversation I enjoyed with Dr Steve Marshall this week about the 1000 Steps Project. How taking photos of our familiar surroundings encourages us to see differently.

All of these examples unearth details which we miss when we merely glance at an image (or our surroundings). These details can be obvious if we choose to see, but we so rarely give an image the time it deserves.

So here is my lesson for today. To slow down as I leaf through a photobook, or admire a photograph on the web. To take the image in and articulate a response to two questions:

• What do I see?
• What does it remind me of?

Thank you Stuart for pausing and chatting.

Originally published at https://world.hey.com.