Viewing the world in the frame of a camera allows me to zoom in, see detail and relationships among shapes, light and dark, colors, objects and more. These relationships are much less noticeable when there is more in the frame of view.
I am drawn time and time again to the experience of spotting something interesting and raising my phone camera to find a way to see and capture that which I spotted, in a pleasing composition. Looking at the screen I see the elements that speak to me and belong in my composition. Framing the image I explore the interplay of shape, light and color searching for and choosing the edges of the image for an esthetically pleasing composition. Creating art.
I enjoy doing this more than most other things, and find that when immersed in the act of framing an image the rest of the world disappears. At these times, fully present in the act of creation, I am in a state of flow, and I love it!
I feel lucky to be alive in this era of smartphone cameras providing us this way of seeing the world.
What is it about seeing the world in a smaller frame and then taking that frame down further and further until we see only that little slice of the world? Focusing in on a finite frame and seeing within that frame elements and how they relate to each other is captivating, possibly because our brains can hold and process and see the relationships among this finite number of elements. Shape, light and color and the spatial relationships between and among these elements is within our human capacity. As the number of elements increases our ability to hold and see relationships among them diminishes.
When solving a problem or understanding things we may also choose to focus on a very finite number of interacting elements and then also open our focus to see context and all that surrounds the issue being explored.
It is interesting how I felt moved to write about this shrinking of our visual frame with a camera during the same period that I wrote about the value of bringing more of our visual field into focus. In my recent blog: “Eyeglasses – On what do we focus, in the world around us? (Part 1:)“. Yin and yang.