Follow Kameron Bayne
I've been looking at a lot of photos lately. Not mine, but others. Thousands of photos reaching across the internet. As I peruse these images, I take note of what strikes me and what I dismiss. Often what I dismiss others embrace. Often what I like gets few comments. Then there's that in-between where the two worlds drift together and there's mutual agreement.
This has nothing to do with photography, really, nor does it have to do with the like or dislike of certain images. What catches me on all of this is how we see and how we interpret what we see.
I recently read Stephen King's On Writing and he brought a piece to the book regarding a scene set up. I can't find it in the book right now, but he used a small number of elements to set the scene, including a red cloth and a rabbit with the number 8 on its back. I got stuck on the red cloth. While in my own head I saw that cloth, my writer's head wanted to describe it more. That's my fault as a writer. Too detailed on the wrong things. But it was a good point for me as King went on to tell me that the reader will see the cloth in many different shades of red. None of which really matter because that's how we involve the reader.
And this has nothing to do with writing either. Again, I want to talk about how we see and how we interpret what we see.
I tend to believe that creatives see the world differently than non-creatives. I believe we want more vibrancy, more texture, more color, more of everything. As we reach out for these things, we all see them differently. Thus, why art is completely subjective.
Actually, because of the way we see, life in general is subjective. I'm going to take this down to a base level to look at it. And I'm going to take it on my level.
I'm a visual person. By visual, in order for me to fully grasp things, it's better to show me images and color and charts, etc. I'm not a numbers person. I hate numbers. In fact, my motto is "I don't do math in my head". Now, that doesn't keep me from balancing a checkbook or maintaining a budget, but simply put, numbers bore me. Yet I know people that see numbers as some sort of magic elixir. They are to numbers like I am to Photoshop. They take something raw, play around with it and come up with something beautiful and magnificent.
So what it is about us that makes this difference in how we see?
Let's go back to the cloth on the table, only because I'm a visual person, and see how many different shades of red we get. Red to me, unless otherwise described, is always deep and dark. It has nothing to do with love or anger or any of those other emotions that tie to colors. It just is. It's a beautiful color to me. In my shade of red.
I wonder than, what makes me see that shade of red? Was it something in my environmental upbringing? Is it something innate? I don't know. But then, I wonder why I hate numbers. Again, upbringing or innate? And yet I have this OCD thing that goes on where I add numbers. Give me a license plate or any numbers listed side by side and I'll add them up in my head (yeah, like I don't do math in my head) and break them down to a natural number. This is how I see numbers. I really don't know if this is how mathematicians see numbers.
But now give me art. While I see color and texture and movement in art, while I see symbolism and story in art, others simply see a picture.
So how do we see what we see and how do we interpret it? Or maybe the better question is why do we see what we see and why do we interpret it as we do?
Peace on your journey - Kerri
Top image from Imgembed.
This is a cross-post from Ezine Articles..
Kerri Williams is a creativity coach, a fine art nature photographer and a writer on a lifelong creative journey. You can learn more about her photography and view her work at http://www.magpistudios.com.