Noticing

Photography, drawing and writing are based around noticing. You can see something without noticing. We often do. We see far too many things to notice them all. Something can be right in the middle of your vision - you are looking right at it, but you don’t notice. That’s normal. Perhaps even necessary.

A lot of the process of learning to draw from observation is to notice what the thing you are looking like actually looks like. Drawing without noticing might result in a simplified shape that represents the thing that you are drawing but doesn’t actually look like what you are looking at. Noticing will let you see the way the light falls, the reflection in a mirrored surface, layers light and shadow.

Writing is the same, I think. Writing without noticing how people actually talk or act will give you something that feels wrong. You might write the way that you think writing should sound - a copy of a copy.

Right now my outdoor time is spent in my garden and I am noticing the differences in each plant every day. The seeds I have planted. The flowers that open. The weeds that emerge. Since most of my photography has been of plants, I have looked very closely at things like these in my darkroom and in nature. I notice a lot. I am used to traveling, to a changing scene. But I am noticing that even in this relatively small space there is plenty to see.