Depth of Field

What do you see right in front of you? Is it what you want to see? If not, do you have the ability to see beyond it? I have always been a fond observer of natural landscape, animals and sky. As a teenager I picked up the art of photography and never looked back. In fact, photography always prompts me to look forward, and often beyond the subject in front of me. While my siblings were very talented at drawing and painting, I was the opposite. However, there is something artistic and creative in all of us, and photography seemed to draw the artistic side out of me, however small it is. It gave me a chance to balance the analytical side of my brain. Apparently, athletics and exercise did little to keep me balanced as a child, so I needed something else. Once I looked through the viewfinder of a camera, I saw the world in a different way. While the viewfinder allowed me to frame a subject, it was what happened in my mind before I looked into the camera that surprised me. I started to visualize and compose what I wanted to see before it actually happened. This prompted me to anticipate the way light would appear and when, and focus on keen observation of the world around me. So often people miss incredible events because they are looking down instead of up. They often miss what is right in front of them, and more often what is happening beyond. In photography, there is an essential element called framing. What is happening beyond the subject is critical to highlighting the subject itself. There must not be too much clutter in the background, yet the background is a key component. This gives a photograph depth of field. This is what happens in my mind before I look through the lens. I create a composition in my mind of what I want to see, then I work with the existing light, background, and subject, to make it happen. So is it the depth of field in the camera that creates the shot that keeps me returning to photography? If I calculated how many pictures I had to take in order to achieve an ideal shot, it is probably 1 in 500. Many times the ideal shot is not captured because the proper light and preparation did not come together at the right moment. All too often there is insufficient preparation, even though there is ideal light. Our minds have tremendous creative capacities. They must be used to envision a work of art before actually creating it. There is a place in the back of the brain called the visual cortex. It is the actual place where we see things. From there, the information is passed to the visual association area where it is compared with previous sight, and then stored. We have a depth of field within our minds. There is virtually endless combinations of visions that we can create from what we already have stored, in conjunction with what we are currently seeing. What is stored is the back drop to highlight, accentuate and highlight what we currently see. In other words, you can envision anything you want from the depths of visual storage in your mind. It is essential to framing what you want to see, and highlighting what you want to capture. Utilize the depth of field in your mind to create and capture the life you want to have, and the memories you want to peruse. It is all right in front of you and beyond, or is it just in the back of your head?