The Photographer’s Eye

I bought my first camera shortly after I turned twelve. While the origin of my fascination with photography remains a mystery, I’ll never forget the overwhelming pride that accompanied me out of that Best Buy all those years ago. For months I’d saved up for what would be the most significant purchase of my adolescence, patiently counting pennies until a fortuitous birthday finally put me in the black. With sufficient funds in hand, I raced to make the purchase that would unknowingly ignite a destiny. Like a golden retriever hearing the front door open, my uncontrollable excitement mauled the packaging until my trembling hands gripped that precious memory collector. Brimming with pride, I gawked at my reflection in the chrome Fujifilm logo, studying the features and controls as if they were encrusted in diamonds. Then I popped the hood, wound the first roll of film, and slid it into its black protective case where it would remain for the next three months.

Despite the anticipation for this momentous purchase, a patient plea encouraged me to preserve the first exposure for a special occasion. What that would be I didn’t know but an internal confidence assured me I would recognize the moment when it came. For months, that canvas casing followed me around like my shadow, with each passing day only solidifying my stubbornness to hold out for that promised inspiration. Then one fateful January morning, that intuitive prophecy came true.

The dirt laced snow whizzed by as our family minivan tore down a salt-caked road in rural Wisconsin. Enroute to my sister’s third grade basketball tournament at Seymour High School, I was numbing my mind with the visual anesthetic of the optical white noise out the window. Staring into the blurred static, I’d challenge the temptation to blink as I waited for a disruption in the hypnotic fuzz to snap my brain from its trance. 

The doldrums of winter were well in effect with the destitute farm fields plastered white. Freeze dried by the frigid temperatures, the frostbitten countryside was encrusted in a stale, brittle shell with the decrepit, skeletal remains of trees adding a spicy dash of disheartened brown to the scene. Any sign of life would require a prolonged thaw to emerge with the exception of a dull herd of black and white dairy cows scratching away at their frozen, roadside pasture. Beside them stood the only disruption of the bleak landscape I’d seen since we left town, a red barn. Beaming beneath a bright blue sky, the crimson cliche radiated a robust pride amongst the desolate plains. As my dad hit the brakes in preparation for our turn into the school parking lot, the jolting realization of my fateful moment snapped me back to life.

My hands, that had been idly petting my canvas covered sidekick, tightened to secure possession. My eyes blinked repeatedly to stir my sedated consciousness while frantically scanning the scene like a lost child searching for its parents in a crowd. As I blindly struggled to pry the camera from its sheath, my gaze remained hyper focused, searching for the composition that struck the creative nerve for this long awaited moment. As I finally managed to put the camera to my eye, our van began to turn and in dramatic fashion I screamed as I watched my moment slip away. 

My anxious pleading won out after we dropped my mom and sister off at the door and to my impatient delight the barn had not been demolished in the two minutes it took us to do so. As we rolled to a halt along the side of the road I slammed the side door open and burst from the car with enough adrenaline to wrestle one of those docile bovines into submission. I quickly found my composition again and took a breath to mentally memorialize the scene through the viewfinder. Double clutching the shutter release, a charged confidence finally dropped the hammer on that big, shiny button. As the camera clicked to record its first exposure, I felt a becoming electricity shoot through my being. My amalgamation with the intuitive muse was complete. My offering of patience to the creative demiurge had been accepted and the journey to fulfilling my destiny had officially begun.

For those wondering, that monumental moment did not result in a monumental image. My knowledge of photography was even more limited than my twelve year old patience and I blew out the scene to look more like the typical, dreary Wisconsin winterscape than the postcard encapsulation of Dairyland USA I’d envisioned. While my ability to adjust for a proper exposure has improved over the last twenty plus years, that gut instinct that called on the camera still holds the reins.

What is it that drives us to take pictures? What is it that guides a painter's brush or a writer's pen? Is it any different than a craving in our stomach or the nervous feeling that we’re being watched? Every photo that has ever been taken came from a compulsion. The act of pressing the shutter button does not happen without intent, but have you ever tried to trace the source of that intent? There is a source. It’s the same for us all whether we’re on the sidelines of the Super Bowl or a tee ball game, in a warzone or a wedding, in a studio with Heidi Klum or a backyard birthday party for our nephew. The photographer’s eye speaks to us all. 

The photographer’s eye is the inherent voice that commands the camera. It’s an intuitive visionary that surveys our surroundings as we navigate the world. Some photographers are ignorant of its presence but there’s an easy exercise to reveal this internal entity. When was the last time you were in the car, the road rushing beneath you, the radio’s playing, traffic is clear, you and the car are on cruise control when, suddenly, something out the window grabs your attention and the thought of “that would be a great picture” enters your head? That’s your eye.

That swift instinct to take a picture is your eye speaking to you. When we’re at “work” the eye dictates every snap of the shutter but its orders are less noticeable when we’re entranced in a creative flow state. The truth is our eye is constantly dissecting the world around us in search of compositions. It’s not a switch that can be turned on and off. The eye is a creative muscle and the world is its gym. 

So what is this intrinsic voice in our heads? What is this presence that has tapped into our personal live stream? Returning to the example in the car, we can conclude that the eye does not reside in our consciousness. There was no inner dialogue beforehand, no conscious prompt to engage the eye, it speaks without being spoken to. We experience a similar sensation when our stomach is empty or our bladder is full and we don’t need a conscious check in to realize we need to eat or go to the bathroom. This ability to frame the world around us occurs as naturally as breathing or walking. Could it be that this reflex is merely the result of photographic experience, an instinctual programing of our mind through repetition? It’s a classic chicken and the egg scenario. Does the eye develop as a result of our passion or is the eye what initially hatched it? Luckily the answer to this conundrum is more straightforward than the puzzling poultry predicament. 

Photography is our way of sharing our perception of the world with humanity. Our experience throughout this life dictates that perception. As our experience is unique to each of us, it is impossible to convey to others, and oftentimes ourselves, the essence of our perspective. Enter photography. Photography provides us with the means to freeze time, to preserve precious moments of life as we experience it. Photography is a tool that allows us to translate our perception into a universal language. Our itch to record a moment in time wouldn’t be possible without the advent of photography, but our desire to share our experience with others is human nature.

We all exist, at least in this dimension, but we all fear the fate of a falling tree in a witness-less forest. As society has become more egocentric we cannot fathom the possibility of our existence going unnoticed. We all desire to plant our flag upon this earth, to engrave our name into the infinite timeline, to solidify our transient presence. The best way to preserve our memory is to plant it into the minds of our peers and photographs are the seeds from which those memories sprout. 

So why is the eye so important? Think of the photographer’s eye as the pen with which we write our life story. Photographs are more than just a momentary arrangement of light particles. They capture emotions, they tell stories. Photos are a tangible encapsulation of life that provide us with a means to preserve our legacy. They are proof that we were here, that we were fortunate enough to live. It’s no longer enough to have our name carved into a headstone, we want people to know how we felt to be alive. The photos we take are not just remnants of our existence, they are pieces of our soul and the eye is the bridge between our physical, conscious reality and that ethereal life force within.

Consciousness gave birth to the ego, a pompous entity that believes it is the sole sentience that inhabits our being. It assumes the identity of the brain, the computer operating the skin puppet that we call I. It calls the shots, it’s the decision maker, the sole proprietor of thought, the advanced biology that allowed mankind to rule over the Earth. Then there’s that tingle in your gut. For all the arrogance that props up the ego it has yet to conceive a logical explanation for intuition. There is no conscious way to summon the internal prophet and there isn’t an ego with a better track record of guidance. It’s as if we have a tap into a universal consciousness that allows us to drink from its well of infinite knowledge.

I mention intuition because the eye is like a creative intuition. The photographer’s eye is just another name for the artist’s touch, the musician's ear, or the writer’s voice. Art is the result of inspiration and, much like intuition, inspiration seemingly manifests out of thin air. It’s the flash of brilliance in the shower, the breakthrough before bed, the sudden desire to photograph the barn along the side of the road. Inspiration is a gift from a place beyond our control, an ethereal realm slipping us insight from the shadow of consciousness. This force is within us because it is us. Far beyond the guise of the ego resides the true essence of self and it communicates through intuition, inspiration, and ideas. 

So if we tell our story through pictures and the inspiration for those pictures comes from our eye and the eye is the bridge to the soul then the photos we take are clues into the foundational truth of our experience. This is ultimately why the eye is so important. The photos we take are intended to preserve the foundational aspects of our lives and they are framed by an intangible presence within us. This ethereal passenger that commands the camera, the same one slipping us intuitive wisdom, is the key to unlocking the soul of our photography and ourselves.

Every click of the shutter is prompted by our all seeing eye. Every inkling for a camera is an intuitive call to preserve a moment in time. My advice, listen to it. The shots aren’t always frame worthy but each one is a cryptic message from a divine entity within. Abiding by its call gives us the ability to analyze and decode its vision which will, in time, allow us to speak its language. We make our photos for the world but they tell our story, it only makes sense that we understand the story being told as well. If photography is the art of seeing, we should be able to see exactly what it is we’re looking at.

The most valuable tool photographers possess is their eye. No amount of financial investment can advance your work more than understanding the entity guiding it. The first step is identifying it, a little awareness is all it takes to hear its voice. From there the goal is to understand its vision, look for patterns in your style or dig through the archives for hints. The final task is to figure out the why. Why do you do what you do? This requires honesty and vulnerability on your part as the key to this step is deep internal reflection. Stare into your intuitive eye, look beyond the conscious plain into the depths of the soul. Accept the truth that bubbles up and use it to make connections with your photography. This process will not be easy but achieving symbiosis will be like pouring kerosene into the furnace of your passion.

My passion for photography was unprompted. My confidence in the arrival of my definitive moment, unfounded. My continued pursuit of a career, unquestioned. I know in my heart that photography plays an important role in my life, just as I was sure I wanted to take a picture of that barn back in 2003. My work has evolved over the years but nothing has advanced it more than getting acquainted with my eye. I never would have guessed that the blast I triggered on that fateful January day would be the starting gun for this journey but I think a part of me always knew what it was doing. Now every time I press that shutter button, I’m sure of it.