Digital BW, The Print

At 10:30 AM 6/11/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>I hope this personal missive is not OT for everyone -- bear with me if it is
>an obvious thing.  It has certainly helped me create much more satisfying
>images by subduing my dominant rational, analytical (and often frustrated)
>left brain.
>
>For some time I had thought I had reached the limit of my equipment's
>ability to produce the best images I could.  I struggled with minute details
>and received increasingly small benefits.  The prints were getting
>technically better and better but _meant_ no more to me.
>
>This led me to ask in a previous post what other people felt contributed
>most to the 'quality' of their images.  Among the good advice there was some
>great advice: that I may be focusing too much on equipment.  Instead of
>buying a LF camera I bought a Holga and relaxed.
>
>There was something about holding that simple plastic camera with one
>shutter speed and one aperture that let me relax and focus on _seeing_
>things.  It is a much more holistic process than the formulae I used before
>and the images have much more meaning for me.  Some days I now go out to try
>and capture a feeling instead of a preconceived arrangement of things. It is
>almost like a state of mind - a kind of relaxed attentiveness, if that makes
>any sense.
>
>Perhaps these are natural steps in an evolving skill.  Perhaps craft
>improves incrementally until a quantum change in seeing/interpreting is
>needed, then incremental changes is craft can resume.  Perhaps my head has
>softened irreparably <g>
>
>Kevin Gulstene
>
>

Keven,

I look at a lot of art in museums to sensitize my mind. Have you ever
noticed how alert you are to form and color when you step out of a gallery?
Everything becomes art.  Even inside a gallery, I've caught myself gazing
with rapt attention at the exit sign:  "Red and sliver and textual... cool man!"

AZ

Maker of Lookaround panoramic camera.
http://www.panoramacamera.us
         or
keyword.com lookaround