Visual Pushups

I have often heard or read about this concept of doing "Visual Push ups".  The one person I can remember vividly talking about it was Jay Maisel on a Kelbyone course.  No I am paraphrasing here but his view went something like this:  If you want to be a body builder you don't go to the gym once a week, ergo if you want to take good pictures you don't go and take pictures every few weeks.... something along those lines, anyways you get the point.

I have often thought about this in relation to myself and how I take pictures.  Often it requires me planning a trip to a beach or some such location, keeping an eye on the weather, setting an alarm for an early start etc etc etc.....  What that does is it creates numerous opportunities for me to cop out - "the weather is looking shifty", "my batteries probably aren't charged", "man that is early!!" and the list could go on.

We are all human and we are all fallible, sometimes our inspiration can just dessert us.  The more I thought about it though the more I realised I have the opportunity to take pictures everyday and it doesn't even have to be with my DSLR.  Everyday I have my phone on me and that allows me to take pictures where ever I am.

 This epiphany lead me to figure out that I would be learning to train my eyes to see things that I usual would never see in everyday scenes.  Now I knew this would not be an automatic process but what I noticed was that more and more I was looking at the world in a different way.

If you have been following this blog or seen most of my other photography you know it normally centers around Landscapes and natural scenes and that is definitely my first love when I am going to pick up my camera and go shooting.  However, when I am on my daily commute or heading out of the office to get some lunch I find it really invigorating and challenging to really take notice of the world around me and try to capture it in a way that I am not used to.

 
What I have learnt from this process as well is that it is really important to keep challenging yourself.  I feel really comfortable shooting landscapes, this does not mean I think I have nothing to learn there, what I mean is that I feel comfortable in what processes I have to follow, what I need to look for in a scene and what conditions will help improve the chances of getting a picture that I am happy with.

This off the cuff shooting with my phone is far more challenging because it is something I am not used to.  What it does is it helps you develop your eye.  It helps see things in the world that normally you would never notice and that is a really good thing.  Seeing rather than just looking can help you craft something cool out of what could otherwise be described as a bland everyday scene.

Light is all around us all the time and if you are looking for it, it will be creating scenes for you that are unique and fleeting in their moments.  I guess it is our challenge to see and recognise these moments and then record them as photographs.

Once you've recorded those scenes then i think the most important thing to do is share them with everyone, and when you shooting with your phone it is only a couple of taps away to sharing with the whole world.

Have a great weekend everyone!