Have you recognised that, if several photographers do together a photo walk, everyone brings different images back home? This is due to the different experience everybody has and therefore do recognise different things. Means photography has something to do with seeing, which can be learned with different methods. For example by using a theme when you are going onto a photo walk. This will sensibilities you and you will come back with different results than without. How to focus on a theme I would like to describe in the following article.
Another option would be so called picture cards like the “Inspiracles” or “See the bigger picture”. This helps in case you don’t have ideas or you need inspiration.
Last but not least you could deal with a topic for a longer time this will change your perception.
How to focus on a theme: photo walk
Choosing a theme helps you to focus on a special topic and you will recognise motifs, which you otherwise missed. I do this from time to time and recognise after 2-3 hours, that I suddenly see only things fitting to the topic. For example with the photo walk “reflections”. In the beginning, it was hard to find motifs but was improving the longer the photo walk lasted. As we finished the photo walk suddenly I only saw reflections, even though that I was already on the way home.
Picture cards
The principle of picture cards is pretty simple. On the one side, you find information about the topic and a short description of how to realise it. On the other side examples, which should inspire you. You have two options in case you take images. Either you look through the cards and decide which one you are using, or, in my opinion, the more exciting, you just draw a card and just use the topic you get. In both cases, you will recognise, that it works to focus on one topic.
Deal with a topic
Especially in the last half-year, I recognise, that my way of seeing and how I take images has changed a lot. Due to the Covid pandemic, I have to work home a lot and therefore I went out during lunchtime to go through the park. Always a camera and a lens with focal length with me. The goal was to photograph local birds. In the first days, I heard the birds but was not able to see them. The more I deal with them, the more I saw the birds and was able to take images in the environment without feeding them. The highlight was, as I recognise a little bird while running on a small branch. Keen to know what it is I stopped and recognised that it was a nuthatch, which was flying to its nest.
