Morning scenes at Japanese-style garden in Grand Rapids, Michigan at various distances and detail.
Scale matters in composing a photo, but also when displaying it in print or projected onto a (very) large screen. Bringing the camera in for a close view draws attention to details that would be lost when the composition is an overview or wide-angle look at the subject and its surroundings. But no matter if the picture is taken close in or from a distance, if the image is presented in a way that is too small in scale then the viewer will not readily perceive detail. The reverse is also true: projected onto a 20-foot cinema screen allows a great degree of detail to be studied. Of course the resolving power of the lens and quality of film or digital sensor also determine how much detail can be distinguished – on modest display or on a gigantic one. The extreme case is the Gigapan technique of merging hundreds of exposures into a single composite image that allows magnification much beyond that of a single photo; for example, a luxury car advertisement showing the Golden Gate Bridge and its surroundings, then zooming in to see the featured car, then zooming in to show the brand mark embroidered onto a headrest of the passenger seat, visible through the car window on the bridge surrounded by the headlands and Pacific Ocean.
The limits to seeing because of scale limitations may be true not only of photos but also when it comes to the limits of thinking because of scale limitations. In other words, if the matter being discussed is framed up close then the conversation can go into great detail (at the expense of perceiving the larger patterns and relationships). But even when composed and curated for a close-up view of the subject, if the occasion for expressing the subject is too small or lacks the right amount of free space, then the experience of engaging in the matter could be frustrating. Therefore, in photo compositions and in conversations of intellect and analysis the scale matters: there should be a close enough view to capture needed detail. And there also should be a venue or occasion to display the viewpoint that is big enough to make the existing detail visible.
Macro is the daily theme for 26 May 2022 at flickr.com/explore
When seeing things only with accustomed standpoint and frame of reference, there is a tendency to notice some of the same subjects and aspects again and again, rather than to gain insight different to the usual vision. This can be said of a life of routines, but also of a particular camera and lens combination.
Every few weeks, it seems, the daily selection by editors at flickr.com/explore host a “take-over” in which a specific locale, theme, or current event will be featured among the 100 or so images of the day. On May 26, 2022 this screenshot shows a low-resolution for “macro take-over.” By scrutinizing the shallow field of focus and crisp edges and textures on the main subject in each composition, one’s eye is trained to pore over the scene with care and slow-pace. In contrast to a snapshot at arm’s length or one that reaches to the horizon, these macro pictures present a microcosm; a small landscape to wander and notice things that would probably be invisible if encountered in one’s daily walk. Besides macro (and also microscopy) There are other frameworks and ways of composing a picture that present a fresh vision of the world, too.
Taking the “normal lens” (between wide angle and telephoto: 35mm to 65mm when expressed in terms of the 35mm film camera) as one’s everyday perspective of events and surroundings, swapping for a moderate wide-angle lens captures wider context and also makes the central subject appear farther from the lens than is actually, tangibly true. And extreme wide-angle simply amplifies those features: even wider context, even more distortion of physical distance to central subject. But so long as the horizon is not tilted up or down, the bending verticals of parallax are not distracting for extreme wide-angle views. Going the other way to telephoto, moderate or even more magnification, the context around the subject is cropped out by the narrower field of view; the subject is framed in glorious isolation, leading the viewer to dwell on that subject alone, ignoring (indeed blinded to) adjacent and bigger surroundings. Leaving aside wider or narrower perspectives as a way to break routine habits of seeing, even working with the normal lens, it is possible in certain conditions to take a fresh view of the subject.
Using a normal focal length lens and customarily aspiring to put as much of the scene in focus as possible (big depth of field; not Bokeh), depending on available light or filters to absorb some light, it may be possible to compose at the shallowest depth of field (the biggest light aperture, e.g. f2.8 or f1.8 on some lenses). But doing the opposite of “everything in focus” and imposing a shallow depth of field (focus depth), then the viewer is forced to look at the subject more carefully than when the subject in focus is part of the continuous scene equally in focus.
Another way to discover a fresh view of a place or situation is to see it from a distance; take a standpoint far enough away so that the main subject is surrounded by its context and the larger lines and masses of the composition stand out in some generalized way. Details are not in clear view, so the eye looks for meaning in the larger elements of the picture. Taken all together– by using a different lens to normal, or by using a normal lens in ways that emphasize and isolate the subject by Bokeh or else by using a standpoint to give the main subject less emphasis and the surroundings more attention– one’s habits of looking around can lead to seeing things with new eyes. Instead of skipping over the many potential subjects as “already seen that; I know what it is,” now the fresh composition lends a closer and possibly longer look at the subject, whether by means of macro, wide-angle, telephoto, or creative use of the same lens as typically used.
In keeping with the blog theme to connect seeing with thinking, this closer and longer way of seeing corresponds to ways of thinking, too. Whereas habits of thinking can easily overlook details nearest to hand, scrutinizing little things with a magnifier or a figurative “close-up lens,” new appreciation is born. In a sense it is like the literal word root for “respect,” RE+SPECTATE, to look again.
see2think 