“Inner process” for taking photographs

<p>I’m just curious about this. I find many of the discussions on this forum interesting, but it seems there are many people who are thinking a lot about what they want to photograph, and why, or are they in touch with what they are doing, etc. I just find myself out of the loop in this type of discussion. This is because my “inner process” can be described as one in which I am always inundated with image-compositions literally “coming at me” all the time. I can either pay attention to this “stream,” as I do when I have a camera in my hands, and literally everything else gets tuned out, or I can turn it down quite a bit to concentrate on other things. With scenes and objects its more of a geometric thing; my mind is always framing interesting/stimulating combinations of textures and forms. With people it really gets interesting; I watch, fascinated, as the amazing micro-expressions come and go on people’s faces moment to moment. With people I am drawn to the facial communication with its emotion and energy. If I had a camera in my head I would fill volumes with impromptu portraits. When I pick up a camera, what I have to do is quickly photograph what I can from the stream of image-compositions presenting themselves to me. Some are better than others, so I usually have to do some quick mental editing. Some of that has to do with noticing lighting and other factors that affect the overall image. Ultimately, the photos of mine I like the best are often ones I quickly “picked” out from the flow of possible compositions. I miss a lot of great images just because I don’t have a camera with me all the time, and even with a camera the image-compositions come and go so quickly I don’t always get the ones I want. Questions like how, or why, or to what end are not so much part of this process, which seems to be totally visual/emotional for me (different area of brain processing from intellect). If you peruse through my folders here you will see that the uniting theme is that they are all the images are literally from my daily life. So, I’m wondering how many other people experience this like I do? I have a suspicion there is a range, typical of most phenomena; a bell curve with me probably at one end, and others falling out all over the spectrum. And I’m certainly not implying that my own inner processes result in “better” photographs than someone who’s inner process is more “thought out” or methodical. The proof of the pudding is the photos that get printed and seen, and I have no doubt all the great photographs of the world have been created by individuals with all sorts of different inner processes.</p>

<p>I primarily just point and shoot. I carry thousands of images around in my head, and when I see them in front of me, I shoot. If I don't see it, I create it, so that's a slight difference. For commercial work, it's a lot more directorial. I do make my own light for 90% of what I shoot, i.e., I don't use natural light, but I shoot at night most of the time anyway, due to<a href="../leica-rangefinders-forum/00U4FR?unified_p=1"> being a vampire.</a></p>

<p>I don't worry about the ones that get away. If I don't have a camera, I don't have to stop looking. If I see something interesting, I catalogue it for the future. Either I see it again or I will make it happen if it's good enough.<br>

<br />I don't carry a camera with me most of the time. I only carry a camera for specific events/locations/times I want to shoot. Mostly at night, to repeat myself.</p>

<p>Steve, <a href="../photo/9825555&size=lg">THIS PHOTO</a> was taken as you describe, pretty much spur of the moment. It came at me, as you say. I was touring the Paramount Theater, liked this lounge, the usher happened to sit down for a break, and I snapped the photo.</p>

<p><a href="../photo/9961353&size=lg">THIS PHOTO</a> also came at me, no plan, but I put a lot of thought and deliberateness into the post processing. I did not pre-visualize this type of result when I snapped the shutter, but I did when I started to work on the processing.</p>

<p><a href="../photo/6033966">THIS PHOTO</a> wasn't planned per se. I arrived at this old mansion for a shoot with some people. This guy was not part of that and was just on his way out. He had the oranges already and was dressed as is. I asked if I could take a picture of him. I told him where to stand and asked him to put one orange on the pedestal in the background. Didn't put much thought into it but it obviously fit well into one of the bodies of work I pursue.</p>

<p><a href="../photo/6704288">THIS PHOTO</a> and <a href="../photo/10553053&size=lg">THIS PHOTO</a> and the photo of Mark just above are parts of what I consider sub-bodies of work. The first falls within my work with aging gay men. The second is part of the work I do at a special needs farming community in New England. I put a lot of thought into what I may want to communicate/accomplish/express with these loose sorts of series and different degrees of thought go into the photos themselves. Most of my thinking about the work is done in the shower and in bed at night.</p>

<p>Generally, I tend not to map out individual photos in advance. With both of these, I knew I was shooting toward the particular series or body of work but each photo came about pretty spontaneously. The first was posed, the second was not. But they were both taken with the guiding thoughts of a series at play, though not terribly consciously at the moment of the snap.</p>

<p>So, I probably appear in different places on your bell curve depending on the photo and the situation. I imagine many photographers do, and aren't limited to one particular way of approaching their photos. But, yes, overall, I probably fall on the more deliberate end, less letting photos come to me and more making them happen, more directing, more involvement and influence, wanting to put myself into them in many cases. </p>

Not really sure what you're trying to say. I don't have an inner process. I just shoot what interests me; at

the moment it's street portraits in a particular SF neighborhood. It's not very complicated...

<p>Steve, you confuse me! You say you feel out of the loop with the discussions on being in touch with photos, and in your description of your inner process, it seems to me rather clear you know just as well up front which kind of photos you want, except you just "go with the flow" of what the world presents to you that day, and then take your pick. In the stream of available images, you already have a lot lined up in your head too (of images you prefer, images you do not want etc.). So, what you describe here is what often comes up in the discussions you feel out of the loop, in my view....</p>

<p>That said, yes, there is a difference of walking around a street with a camera, or a 'studio-work-like' interaction with people for portraits. And in that sense, the bell curve idea makes a lot of sense. For the record, I'm somewhere on your end.</p>

<p>Does this place on the bell curve really change the inner process? I wonder.<br>

Even if you shoot just what interests you, like Brad, there is something going on in your head. The second you raise your camera and frame, you are looking for a composition that does the best justice to the scene before you. Can be a "process" of hours, can be a split second. But we include and exclude from the frame, we try to place objects in the places we think are best, and bring in focus and out of focus along the line we try to convey the way we experienced the moment. On the Steve/Brad/Wouter side of the bell curve, this process is often very short, but it happens. It's also what makes me *not* do click.<br>

No, it's not complicated. But it's there, and it all has to do with the photographer being that particular person, with that background, beliefs, cultural conventions and so on. Emotional responses. And it also has to do with training, experience and learning to compose better. Which is partially certainly an intellectual process too. Not that I am a very accomplished photographer, but in a split second now, I am much mor sure framing and understanding the composition I want (rather than franctically point, shoot, and hope). This is result of an intellectual process.<br>

Which is a long response to:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>which seems to be totally visual/emotional for me (different area of brain processing from intellect)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Clearly, I only partially agree to this quote. The emotional, visual are not the same, and not disconnected from the intellect. They all play together. And, when all is done, the intellect can still brainstorm about what the visual and emotional responses of people are.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Questions like how, or why, or to what end are not so much part of this process</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A brief clarification. Steve, you are talking about the moments of shooting ("When I pick up a camera") when you say this. What I sense is that hearing other people talk about their thoughts, questions, complexities of their visual repertoire and desires perhaps suggests to you that these are somehow interfering or at least simultaneous with the process of shooting. Those of us who talk about more complex thoughts about our work aren't always doing that kind of thinking when we're out shooting, though some types of shooting require more thought and deliberation than others. Very often the thinking takes place when reviewing the photos and when thinking about the next day's shooting. And, yes, sometimes the shooting itself is accompanied by a lot of thought, not waiting for something to present itself but, as I said above, making something happen and making it happen in such a way that it communicates or expresses something significant and very intentional. Spontaneity, surprise, and accident can still be allowed into that method of shooting.</p>

<p>Often, people mistakenly think of thinking as a substitute for something else rather than as an adjunct to a lot of other mental, physical, sensual, and psychical processes.</p>

<p>____________________________________</p>

<p>P.S. Great points, Wouter, in your first two paragraphs. One can certainly be in touch with a stream of consciousness method and one can intend that to be their method. But there are differences to that method, often visible in the resulting work and especially visible in a body of work.</p>

<p>Insurance actuaries talk about the profound behavioral difference between people they designate as "quantitative" and "non-quantitative." Among salespeople, "quants" are known to be easily sold: their lack of complex emotional or intellectual distractions results in their affinity for linear sales-pitches (eg the old "Ben Franklin Close"). Engineers are push-overs, though they believe they're tough sells :-)</p>

<p>I think (personally) that yes, the obvious difference is biologically hard-wired, but that it has to do more with linear thinking than with numbers. When sorting ideas, do we frame them in words? I do only when I don't see forest for trees...and then I write because it's hard to hang on to the visualized complexity otherwise.</p>

<p>Alan Watts shook me up as a teen when, on his remarkable KQED (San Francisco) public television program (many are easily found on Youtube), he said the general goal of Taoism, Zen and a variety of other "eastern" ways of looking at things, was to free obsessives, neurotics (and in a book he later mentioned teen agers) from the tyranny of thinking in words. That simple observation about word-driven thinking freed me immediately from a distracting collage of teen angst, which let me more peacefully enjoy a more focused set of angsts :-)</p>

<p>Thanks for all your responses guys. Wouter, Fred, many great observations (and photos Fred). <strong>Brad,</strong> you are arguably farther out the bell curve than I am, heh heh. I agree <strong>Wouter</strong> with your statement:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>it all has to do with the photographer being that particular person, with that background, beliefs, cultural conventions and so on. Emotional responses. And it also has to do with training, experience and learning to compose better. Which is partially certainly an intellectual process too.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The intellectual process which you describe runs in the background for me. I click the shutter when it "feels" right somehow, which I cannot describe because it precedes intellectual decision making, more like a reflex. I can reflect intellectually afterwards in post processing. When I decide to take a photo, my concentration intensifies, and it feels much like a trance state, and I'm sure it is a trance state (I'm experienced in doing hypnosis therapeutically) where almost all other inner processes are turned off and I wait for things to fall into place--that "feeling right" moment. I'm sure others have this experience too, some more than others. Have you ever been listening to music so intently that you don't hear someone talking to you? It's that level of concentration I am talking about.<br>

<strong>Fred,</strong> you said:</p>

<blockquote>What I sense is that hearing other people talk about their thoughts, questions, complexities of their visual repertoire and desires perhaps suggests to you that these are somehow interfering or at least simultaneous with the process of shooting.</blockquote>

<p>Actually, no, not interfering with. I have gotten the impression that other people use their "thoughts, questions, complexities of visual repertoire and desires" <em>in order</em> to take a photograph, so yes, simultaneous with. I guess that's where I feel different. When I pick up a camera it certainly intensifies, but generally I am seeing compositions all the time, and this happens spontaneously, without any (conscious) thought. <br>

<strong>John</strong>--yeah man, "thinking without words." We can perceive visually which can set off reflexes that precede rational thought. If you practice mindfulness you can learn to sit back and "watch" the whole process, although that is not what I am doing. I think for me it is more reflexive.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>so yes, simultaneous with</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sometimes that's true. But just as often (different for different people and for different photographs, of course) the thinking part, as I said above, takes place in bed, in the shower, when writing posts for PN. That conceptualization then acts as a guide (helps give voice to "the Muse") when it comes time to photograph. In these cases, it's not simultaneous. By the time we are shooting, many of these thoughts, concepts, goals have already been internalized well enough that they become like our knowledge of exposure and focus . . . second nature.</p>

<p>Steve, I can completely relate to the description of your reply; sounds much like the way it works for me. The aware-intellect part happens more when sorting and/or post-processing the photos.</p>

<p>There's always an inner process whether we're aware of it or not. You are making decisions based upon your tastes and upon what has worked and not worked for you in the past.</p>

<p>If we examine our inner process and become more aware of the details of its decision-making logic, this affords us the opportunity to make adjustments to it. Not to change or improve it necessarily, although that might be possible as well, but rather to explore new possibilities that we would not have tried if we had remained on "automatic pilot." No matter how good the auto-pilot is, it always has the capacity to learn and grow.</p>

<p>Dan, I agree partly. For me the auto-pilot process is highly creative itself. That's the fun part: you "get out of the way" so to speak, and as Milton Erickson said; " trust your unconscious." Auto pilot will get you places you couldn't imagine without letting it take you there.<br>

Yeah, Fred, I do the thinking part in post production, working with the raw material. Then, for me, the more conscious processing takes place.<br>

Brad said he didn't have an internal process. I think I would have said that 40 years ago. One thing that comes with years of practice is more awareness of one's inner process. As Dan says: "there's always an inner process." I think a lot of people are just not accustomed to tuning into it, which is fine, because the work is still being done.</p>

<p>Reading the thread's title, I don't have an inner process for taking photographs. I do have an inner process through which I also happen to take photographs in, among other things, like taking photographs for inner process. <br /> ---<br /> In <em>The Nature of Photographs</em>, the inner process is also described, as the 'mental level'.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"The mental level's genesis is in the photographer's mental organisation of the photograph. When photographers take pictures, they hold mental models in their minds; models that are the result of the proddings of insight, conditioning, and comprehension of the world.<br /> At one extreme, the model is rigid and ossified, bound by an accumulation of its conditioning: a photographer recognizes only subjects that fit the model, or structures pictures only in accordance with the model. .... At the other extreme, the model is supple and fluid, readily accommodating and adjusting to new perceptions.</p>

<p>For most photographers, the model operates unconsciously, But, by making the model conscious, the photographer brings it and the mental level of the photograph under his or her control.<br /> ....<br /> When I make a photograph, my perceptions feed into my mental model. My model adjusts to accommodate my perceptions (leading me to change my photographic decisions). This modelling adjustment alters, in turn, my perceptions. And so on. It is a dynamic, self-modifying process. It is what an engineer would call a feedback loop.<br /> It is a complex, ongoing, spontaneous interaction of observation, understanding, imagination, and intention."</p>

<p><em>- The Nature of Photographs</em>, Stephen Shore</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I also go through dual interleaving channels of process. When I'm not in the act of photographing, before and after, there's more thought, conscious ideation, sometimes planning, even sketching and drawing ideas or writing about a series, shaping it, etc. But when I am photographing, I rarely think of the technical, and the preceding mode subsides and I go into wizard/trance witness mode.</p>

<p>When doing <em>illustrations</em> for an article (I also do the writing), it is very different, and the balance between the two modes remains a lot closer to even.</p>

<p>These modalities are part and parcel of our human potential. One doesn't have to use both, but they're at our disposal. I also believe the responses in this thread are linked to being in touch with one's work.</p>

<p>A few questions come to mind. I'll pose them as either/or questions knowing that the answers are a matter of balance/tension and not one way or the other. But the thread has led me here and I think there's a little more finessing that can be done.</p>

<p>How do we go into our trances or get into a zone when shooting? Is it a shutting out (I don't hear distracting voices or noises) or a way of paying attention? Is the background noise to be ignored or can it be incorporated, synthesized? Will our trances be affected by environment? If so, how does that work? If not, do we risk not being "in touch" with what we're shooting? Is some of what we're shooting the peripheral sounds, sights, and textures?</p>

<p>I consider it a matter of awareness. Background music, background noise, passersby conversing on a street where I may be shooting a portrait or a candid street scene can either be distractions or they can be synthesized into my experience and add to the overall <em>orchestration</em> of the moment. I see this as a matter of choice, though I don't always consciously make the choice. But when I am in the zone, really in the zone for myself, I am not ignoring all these things, I am so aware of them as to allow them to open doors for me, one after the other. For me, shutting them out would be to struggle against something. For me, it's a matter of allowing them to be what they will and even responding to their influence, as Steve Gubin talked about in another thread regarding music he listens to while processing.</p>

<p>Is the trance one of complete lack of self awareness? Can I still challenge myself while I'm in the zone? Why not? There are trances of complacency and there are more active or productive trances. (And, importantly, most trances have aspects of each.) Thinking and conceptualizing can simply be part of the flow. That doesn't imply thinking <em>about</em> thinking and conceptualizing. It just implies doing it.</p>

<p>Steve,<br>

I found that having a more precise idea what I want to photograph helps my in my personal work. I used to just go out with my camera looking for photographs - I was ending up with disjointed, amorphic and unrelated body of work giving me little satisfaction. I am still open to unexpected, but I photograph with a purpose and try not to get distracted by flowers, babies and beatiful women.</p>

<p><strong>Thomas,</strong> interestingly, I haven't "gone out and looked for photographs" in decades. Photographs "present themselves to me" continuously all the time. Out of these I choose with purpose. <br /> <strong>Fred,</strong> interesting your bringing up awareness. Awareness during the making of a photograph for me is mostly an acute visual intensity, a trance. I don't know if sounds and general ambiance are a part of it because I'm not focusing on those things consciously, but that doesn't mean they are not incorporated by my unconsciousness, which I am allowing to direct me to a large degree, but not totally. I simply trust my unconscious will take into consideration what it needs. Maybe for you "challenging myself" while in the zone of concentration is parallel to my own experience of letting my unconscious guide me (or maybe I'm way off here!). We go about it somewhat differently, and describe the experience differently, but the same thing seems to be happening, ie. we are taking a photograph with a combination of directed awareness (based on our experience) and allowing creative process to occur as well, which seems to me the ideal situation. <br /> <strong>Phylo,</strong> Stephen Shore's description you quoted seems to paint the unconscious pejoratively, but I think that is an oversimplification. I can make it more complicated by stating that one can consciously make room for the unconscious to provide fresh insight or material, if you will, to the mix. Creativity for me comes from "somewhere else." You do have to have the skills "chops" and tools, and experience, etc. and the openness to allow it to flow through you. I compare it to improvising such as playing a solo in a jazz piece. It sounds like some of us like to have a lot of control over this, and some of us enjoy the element of surprise. Maybe that's where we are wired differently. Like I said before the proof of the pudding is in the photographs that get printed and seen, and I am still sure that great photos are made using a whole range of "inner processes."<br /> <strong>Luis,</strong> I agree with your observations:</p>

<blockquote>These modalities are part and parcel of our human potential. One doesn't have to use both, but they're at our disposal. I also believe the responses in this thread are linked to being in touch with one's work.</blockquote>

<p>I do really appreciate all your responses. This is a subject that is very close to me and I'm glad a few others have jumped in to provide some interesting things to think about. I've often wondered how other people go about taking a photograph, what goes in in their minds as "inner process." My own perceptions about this subject are fairly strong now that I've been doing this for a long time, so I hope I'm not coming off as closed-minded.</p>

<p>"Inner processes" is a refuge Vs. external evidence. The opposite of "performance."</p>

<p>Steve,</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I’m just curious about this. I find many of the discussions on this forum interesting, but it seems there are many people who are thinking a lot about what they want to photograph, and why, or are they in touch with what they are doing, etc. I just find myself out of the loop in this type of discussion.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It depends.</p>

<p>We should consider that this forum is about philosophy of photography, which in itself is not exactly coincident with photography, even if it is closely related to it.</p>

<p>Philosophy often goes beyond concreteness, it may seek general categories and models which could be weakly related to the actual "act of photographing".</p>

<p>But in general I would say that there is always a relationship with the concrete photographic experience, even if not immediately perceivable.</p>

<p>Discussing the topics here has greatly helped me to understand what I want to photograph and how. It also helps tuning the technique.</p>

<p>I don't think I have an inner process - if I think of process in its normal meaning. I have a few different kinds of motivation that are coupled with some obviously external procedures - (maybe processes.)</p>

<p>My typical motivation is a loop. I first imagine some photograph inspired by something I already have, or something new that I see. I think about some ways I might get that on film, then go out and try. I come back and study those results, rinse and repeat until I think I have it. I certainly don't think that is unique.</p>

<p>My second motivation is to allow discovery in any means possible including accidents, luck, and mistakes. To borrow an old business management phrase, "I photograph by walking around." Since I didn't live my life as much of a walker (e.g. drove everywhere) walking is itself a new discovery for me in the past few years.</p>

<p>Sometimes I don't know which is more important to me, the walk or the possible resulting photographs. But walking is the creative motivation. Walk and look and stop and look, and walk some more. Again, nothing unique about that. If I meet someone on the street I have a portrait opportunity suddenly. If I pass an odd stairway I have an architectural opportunity, and so on. I don't prejudge, I just look and allow. Most of the time these photos are the beginning of a new idea which has to be refined over many subsequent sessions. Sometimes because I have the wrong lens, or because the light is wrong, or the sky is wrong, or any number of reasons. I am learning to be a patient refiner. The idea of going back for a photo 3 or 4 or 6 times is new to me. I never did that before. Never had the time in the pre-retirement era.</p>

<p>I am new enough to the more serious practices of photography that I am still constantly amazed - stupified really - by the difference between human vision and camera vision. The difference between a scene you experience through eyeballs, and the one printed as a two-dimensional piece of paper with specific edges. So, if there is any inner process at work at all for me, it is the process of supposing how on earth I can reverse engineer the image I want on the piece of paper back into some reality that I must first capture with the camera.</p>

<p>I was photographing a musician friend of mine yesterday as he was saying something to me about why music "works." He pointed out that one reason music pleases the brain is that there is a constant process of dissonance and off-beats resolving into harmony and rhythm - structure forming out of apparent choas and/or silence is the "payoff" in music. Some musicians like to keep the audience in choas longer than others, but it is always the resolution of it that is the real genius. I think photography is like that - we have this whole world out there of concepts, unlimited numbers of paths to follow conceptually, and then on top of that we have myriad compositions we can form out of what is visual mess most of the time - for me I'd have to say that's my process - always trying to move towards visual and conceptual resolution and harmony.</p>

<p>I like M's idea of a loop . . . a <em>reciprocal</em> relationship. Refinement over time strikes a chord. I don't often return to the same spots (though I have) or even necessarily to the same people, but I do return to the same concepts, in hopes of refining them and pushing those visions along. For me, the going back rarely has to do with equipment, since I don't have much (!), so tends to be about finessing and nuancing my visual approach, working with pose, gesture, expression, the idea of the photo as well as the look of it. Recently, I've been considering skew a lot (especially for it's uncanny expressive value), so there's a few ways in which I will revisit that but in very different situations and likely with different subjects.</p>

<p>Matthew, in my eyes, you may be selling yourself short. I see much of your work (I checked out your web site) as more a matter of intrigue, leaving questions unanswered, and even discord as opposed to seeming to move toward visual and conceptual resolution and harmony. A lot of music does end in resolution, though certainly tension is often an important factor. Photographs, to me, while they have many similarities to music, are often more likely to be open-ended, precisely because there is no real end to the time constraints on viewing a photo, whereas a piece of music usually literally ends. A photo really can leave things hanging, depending on the information provided within the frame, which may well suggest things outside the frame. I don't look at your photos, in particular, as compositions that get formed. Stories being told, descriptions of what you see, vague moments in some cases. <a href="../photo/7427070">THIS PHOTO</a>, as a matter of fact, seems the antithesis of what you're saying. I look at it and see neither composition nor resolution. That's what moves me about it.</p>

<p>Fred - just had to say thanks for looking so closely at my photographs - I often read this forum because I find a good many people here (you included!) have an ability to think and express things about photography with a clarity and intelligence that I don't seem to possess, but that I find very helpful and inspiring. This philosophy forum in particular has a wonderful way of staying off of the gear/tech digressions typical of every other photo forum that I've perused; setting the stage for real investigation and stimulating debate. All this is to say (to get back on point) on second thought I guess I tend to work fairly intuitively, and I can see the truth in how you say I shoot my work - amazing that I can't see it myself... thanks again. </p>

<p>Steve, my gut reaction to your OP and to your example of a multitude of images going through your mind is rather like the parallel dilemna many of us come across in picking one's 5 best images from among several hundrded.</p>

<p>5 best what? Therein I think lies one possible answer. Being more concentrated on choice of subject, approach and purpose. I also see many very interesting images and could shoot them all, but why? They might all be interesting to some degree, but what would my inner voice be telling me, other than to jiggle a kaleidoscope (you will excuse I hope my directness and symbolism, which is not meant to describe anyone's approach in particular, but simply to etch the point I'm trying to convey)?</p>

<p>The only workshop I have ever attended was one by nature photographer and friend Michel Boulianne at Ile Verte an isle some 300 Km down the ever widening St. Lawrence River. During the whole weekend, I shot only 39 images, partly because I am not all that attracted to nature, per se, but mainly I think because my choice and purpose was quite focussed. I purposely limited the rush of images to those I was intent on making (some abstract, some architectural details, some people shots in infra-red light), ignoring many others, even after composing them in my mind and viewfinder. A lady photographer shot something like 1500 images. She was quite confused about her choices at the end, when we were asked by Michael to display some of our images and explain our raison d'etre for each. She may have been listening to many inner voices at once.</p>

<p>I like your reference to the inner voice. I don't think it is for me something automatic/indigenous/(or entirely) born with, but rather it has to be developed or trained in a somewhat iterative way as I make my way through the process iof photographing, of critically self-evaluating my approach and results, reformulating my purpose or aesthetic, and trying repeatedly to come closer to what I want to say/show/question in my images. Then that inner voice can be more relied upon to target what I feel to be intriguing, important or of beauty or fantasy, elements that I personally find quite related to my own quest.</p>

<p> </p>

Go somewhere with a fellow photographer - a park, a beach town, a business district or public square. Spend 15-30 minutes shooting

there, but make an agreement that you'll always remain within a hundred yards of each other. This way you'll always

be more or less in the same place at the same time.

 

 

Review the photos. Whenever I've done this with a friend I've found the differences to be startling. They get lots of

shots that I never "saw" even though they were literally right in front of me.

 

 

There's always an inner process, and no two photographers have the same process. When you review those photos

you'll see the differences between your process and your friend's process. If you look with an open mind,

maybe you'll catch a glimpse of your photographic reflection.