I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that I’m fond of David Duchemin and his books on cultivating photographic vision. He also does a series of video podcasts and in one of them (unfortunately I don’t remember which) he heartily recommended Freeman Patterson and in particular his book “Photography and the Art of Seeing. A Visual Perception Workshop for Film and Digital Photography“. I’d been given an Amazon.com gift certificate for my birthday so I decided to pick up a copy.

I very much enjoyed it. It’s relatively short (152 pages) and contains numerous pictures to illustrate his points. The major sections are as follows:

Barriers to seeing
Learning to observe – thinking sideways; Relaxed attentiveness
Learning to imagine – imagining; abstracting and selecting
Learning to express – the challenge of expression; unique properties of photography; how a camera sees space; thinking about visual design; elements of visual design: tone; elements of visual design: color; principles of visual design; working with visual design
Photography and the art of seeing

I particularly liked the exercises he proposed, mostly in the “Thinking Sideways” section. I tend to get in a photographic rut where I take pretty much the same type of picture over and over again. I know this, but I have great difficulty figuring out how to break out. Some of these exercise offer an opportunity to do so. One example:

Lock yourself in your bathroom with a camera, a tripod, and a standard lens. Give yourself 20 minutes to make 10 pictures. This is an example I have tried with several students – the resulting slide show have been both hilarious and instructive, and the variety of pictures amazing.

My only criticism is that one of the longer sections: “Thinking about visual design” is completely devoid of illustrative examples.

Well worth reading!