Not everyone sees things the way you do

- There are a lot of peculiar things about the human visual system, particularly as compared to the cameras that you shoot stills or video with. The human visual system has an amazing ability to represent white under any kind of light. It has an incredible dynamic range. The range of light to dark that it can see. There are some aspects of it that are a little bit tricky, though. Tricky to recognize. You think, as you're moving through the world, looking at things and seeing things, that your visual sense is objective, that you are seeing what's there, and that's it, that's all there is to it.

But that's really not true. Most of your visual sense is actually made up by your brain. You see what you expect to see. Your brain projects expectation onto the world and that's what you notice. And what that means for a photographer is twofold. One, it means that you may not recognize shots that are out there because you simply don't see them. Or the shots that you do see, you think everybody else sees. I go out in the world and I recognize something like this horse or that flower or whatnot, and I go, ah, there's a photo to be had.

Sometimes I go out in the world and I see something and I start to take a picture, and I go, there's no reason to take this picture, it's obvious, it's a cliche. It's not always a cliche. The reason it seems like it's a cliche to me, is because that's the way that I see. When I'm out in the world and I, I was riding along a highway on my motorcycle when I saw these three horses arranged like this, and I, for some reason, thought there was a photo there. I worked very quickly to get off the bike and see them. No other cars or bikes were stopping.

Yet, for some reason, I don't allow myself the understanding that this is a unique vision. One of the reasons I don't allow myself to understand it is because unique vision sounds so stuck up. Um, by unique vision, I don't mean that it's necessarily a great photograph, but it is one that maybe only I see. I'm telling you this because I want you to remember this when you get stuck. Those times when you feel like, I, everything I shoot is boring, or I'm shooting a cliche, I'm shooting the obvious picture.

Shoot it anyway. Maybe you're right. Maybe it is a boring, cliche-ridden, obvious picture, but maybe not. Maybe it's a picture that you see that other people don't recognize. Get it home, work it up, show it to some people, and see what their response is. As you move through the world, following your vision, and paying attention to the vision of other photographers, you may find that there is a place for you, a place that's yours, a place that you weren't able to recognize before.