Preconceived crap…

Thinking about how easily we apply stereotypes, or even just fall right into them, I really wonder if we miss something along the way. We think of certain kinds of people being good at math, other kinds at being better at art, and yet others being better at money, but I wonder how much of it is just meant to be divisive to the point that we readily ignore what’s really going on around us. It’s something I’m so guilty of these days (playing into stereotypes) and I think we need to get past it by learning from it, not just ignoring the stereotypes themselves; political correctness can have its place, but it all too easily becomes overbearing to the point that we get afraid to speak out, avoiding the issue altogether.

When it comes to photography, we tend to assume that only the latest & supposedly greatest gear will solve any & all issues we have, not realizing that the camera’s only a tool that we need to feel comfortable with enough to use it in a way that shows what the scene was like as well as how it felt. It’s no wonder that we’re getting annoyed when our images don’t turn out the way we want them and it’s mostly due to our over-reliance on gear compared to technique & composition. I think, and I’ve learned, that getting the camera off of Auto helps me to think more about the scene in front of me and compose at least a bit better than I would if I’d put it on Auto, letting the camera do all the work for me.

– Sunlight –

With the above image, I had my own preconceived notions of what it should be, but I was caught off-guard by just how much of an effect the early morning sunlight, as well as the reflected sunlight off of one of the all-glass façades of a nearby office building, had on the flowers on the large tree. The building’s orange-tinted glass only added to the morning light that shone onto the flowers on the trees; because the flowers were white, the orange shone through even more, especially before working on them in post-processing. I think, personally, preconceived notions give us a start, but we need to be able to get past them in order to get images that are true to feel & sight.