I will constantly blab about pictures and this and that about subconscious picture taking and the likes but I really do feel there is something about not really seeing something in the visual world but seeing outside of the lens.
Take for example this shot of a golfer at the Sony Open in Honolulu. He knocked the ball off the fairway into a greenside bunker on the 3rd green. I lined up across from the pin to catch the shot he was going to make. I lowered the monopod holding my 400mm 2.8 but found the angle too busy as the course homes were in the background making lots of distractions. I walked a bit up the hill mingling with the gallery a bit and found a cleaner view with the lakes and water spout.
The odd thing of it all is the fact I lined up the view to have the jutting angles of the lake’s grass mimicking the actual position of the golfer. The flag flapping in the foreground is just an added bonus. HOW I did this is beyond me. Is it a complete coincidence or was it something my mind’s eye saw before hand. Do we really plan these shots or do they just happen? I did see the background but didn’t expect things to line up like they did…or did I? Get what I mean, we see things beyond our actual vision.
Being a photographer is tough. You spend 99% of your time looking thru a little rectangle box via a round tube. Everything is either compressed into a small vision of the world or a distorted wide blur of life. Nothing is real reality. it is all what is defined by a glass maker, computer, or that brief 1/2000 sec of time. Meyerowitz said we can learn to see things in those quick snaps of a shutter. Either a slow 1/15 of a sec or a dazzling 1/8000 sec. Life via a camera is just a swish-click-clack-snap-pop of a shutter.
There is a Getty photog who really makes magic with his images. He shot last years Sony Open and made one of the most amazing shots of Tadd Fujikawa that only he could take. I realized he was talented but it was something more than just having a “skill.” See the image here as i don’t have permission to show it. There are three To me it takes a skill beyond the average person to capture moments as such. Funny thing is Fujikawa is known for his diminutive stature so the heights of the palms trees repeat who Tadd is.
Amamzing.
I didn’t mention the golfers name as he isn’t important to my story and the image isn’t life making. I do feel it helps make me a better visionary. Whether is intentional, accidental or just a quick glimpse of life is beyond me. I’d like to view it as a capture of art in real life or possibly nothing more than a gimmicky shot taken in that 1/2000 second realm. That subconscious taking over and making life a bit more exciting.