Here are six “things”.
They are all spherical or circular.
Is an angry ball “spherocious”?
So, what are these things?
A
B
C
D
E
F
Here are “answers”.
A: Cheap Chinese-made porcelain balls, in a store display. B: Convex driveway mirror on a snowy day. C: Circular pattern in recently-snowed-on ice. D: Window prism refracts onto fireplace shovel. E: Sea urchin interior F: Skunk cabbage flower.
Contemplating these images makes me (again) realize that photography is an interesting endeavor.
So is making a sign.
One of the hardest things about making signs is NOT reading the words. You have to SEE the sign when you’re designing and making it. You can’t go getting lost in the words, or at least you can’t after you’ve prioritized your copy.
In the same way, it’s helpful, while taking photographs, to stop taking a picture “of” something, and to try to just “see” what’s in your viewfinder or display screen, without piling on the “name” of what you have in your image.
Think of the last time you saw something you didn’t have a name for. Your ignorance got hijacked by curiosity and perhaps by wonder or amazement. Let’s say what you saw was a bird, or a plant you’d never seen before. Perhaps you took the time to really look at it, noting size, shape, colors, and details. Maybe you even made a drawing of it, or even a quick sketch, if your moment of contact was brief. Maybe you later found a name for what you saw.
Would you have looked with such wonder or intensity if you already had a name at hand?
“Oh, that’s just a chickadee.”
“Oh, that’s just a daisy.”
“Oh, that’s just a paperclip.”
Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
Sometimes naming can kill.
Oh say DO YOU see!!!!
Good analogy, observation about what stimulates curiosity, and how it relates to photography. You are right, for example those hard to identify macro shots always make me stop and wonder.