Up: [[Zen Camera]] Created: 2023-06-14 ## Shooting from the Hip Our first week of Zen Camera suited me completely. On reflection, that’s because I really embraced the first exercise titled ‘Shoot from the Hip’. I love the idea of each of us having a unique view of the world, but really didn’t (and still don’t) have any sense of what my unique view might be. If he had jumped us right into the technical aspects of exposure settings and such, I’d have been sunk. By giving us permission to just take photos without even looking through the viewfinder, I felt really free to just shoot. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that and I ended up with 147 photographs. I wasn’t often able to do it exactly as he said. Since I’m using my iPhone camera, the viewfinder is the entire screen and the button I need to press is on that screen. I need both hands and I need to glance to find the button, so as a result I’m inevitably seeing something of what I’m shooting. I compensated for that by working fast, shooting at the moment I glance at the screen. ## Chapter 1: Observation There were many points of interest in this first chapter: It hadn’t occurred to me to think of a photograph as a [[Metaphor]]. I’m a bit chagrined to admit that since metaphor is so important to me, but there it is. I haven’t done any deep work on this yet, but I have the strong sense that when I do fully embrace photographs as metaphors I will have unlocked the mystery of “my unique view of the world.” Related to the above is the whole idea of using [[Senses]] as well as mind when taking a photograph. Again, a surprise to me. I realize I’ve always thought of a photograph as a literal record of something. Realism in art is often referred to as ‘like a photograph’. I’ve been very guilty of centreitis in my photos. I found the section on framing (pages 33-35) really interesting and experimented a lot with that when shooting from the hip. I quite like some of the results. Light scares me a bit. My spatial intelligence is very low; I’m terrible at estimating distances, for example. I know light isn’t part of that, but the feeling is the same for me. For example, when I’m painting something and I’m supposed to put in the shadow. Most of the time I can’t figure out where the shadow would be and I can’t see it unless it’s really obvious. But I did like what Ulrich said about focusing on how light makes you feel. It explained why I so enjoy being by the river early in the morning. The light is wonderful then, nowhere near as harsh as midday. ## Favourite Photos #Photo ![[ZC1 - undergrowth.webp|400]] This one because shooting low gave me a lot more texture, a better range of greens, and because it now looks like a jungle undergrowth to me instead of a few plants deliberately planted under a tree. #Photo ![[ZC1 — Light and silver on the water.webp|400]] This one because of the light and the silver of the water. The original image is better than this minimized one but it’s also seven times larger. #Photo ![[ZC1 — Diagonal of sky and railway.webp|400]] And finally this one because I’ve decided that I really like angles like this, again I love the light, and I am happy that the horizon line is not centred diagonally! ## Next Week I’m going to need to stay with Chapter One for another week, possibly two more. I want to keep shooting from the hip for a while, and doing it in other areas beyond the River Walk. I did a bit of that but want to do a lot more. And I’ll have good opportunity for that (maybe) since I’ll be away from home next Tuesday through Saturday. I say maybe because I’ll be with various friends at their homes enroute to a two day stint at a Toronto airport hotel for the AGM of the provincial library board. I don’t like to take pictures of people and I’m unlikely to take photos of their homes so it could be slim pickings, but I’d like to see if getting out there with an awareness of needing to take photos will help me discern a bit more of what I like and what I don’t. I also need to devote more time to daily observation. I’ve given that short shrift this week. I do a great job of talking about the importance of being rather than doing, but am definitely at the very earliest steps of walking my talk.