Developing Your Photographic Curiosity

The process of making a captivating image has to start somewhere, yet so often we’re not quite sure where to begin. I know because I’ve been there and also see this all the time when working with students on my workshops.

One strategy is to try and capture as much as possible, but that can leave an image feeling isolated and detached from the original experience that inspired you. It’s also very easy to include much more than you need, resulting in a diluted idea that doesn’t really connect with a viewer.

Of course you can get lucky, but pure luck is not something you want to rely on. I prefer to define luck as “opportunity meeting preparation,” with the greatest emphasis on being prepared. So how can we get there?

The primary way for me was (and still is) through developing my sensitivity. Consider that as photographers we are taking in information through all fives senses, much of it subconsciously. You’re seeing, hearing, smelling, and often perceiving the texture of things through your innate sense of touch. All of this happens whether you’re aware of it or not. But you can certainly become more aware.

One technique I use and recommend is to ask yourself the following questions as you explore a location:

• What do I notice?
• What am I wondering about?
• What or how do I feel?

You can also phrase them as statements:

• I notice…
• I wonder…
• I’m feeling…

This type of exercise can help you clarify your vision of what really interests you visually and emotionally at that moment. This leads to more awareness of what you’re really “seeing,” and may help you grab hold of an idea that might lead to stronger, simpler images.

This is like a sculptor chipping away at the edges of the stone that will eventually become their sculpture. Each strike of the chisel leads closer to clarity and away from ambiguity. Similarly, you make an image, and then try to see if there’s a slightly better way to improve on that image while remaining focused on how to strengthen the composition, nothing more.

This includes not methodically reviewing your images to see how “successful” you’ve been, which detaches you from the moment and pulls you away from the potential of a creative spark.

In the excellent book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert says that curiosity is the key to that creative spark that we value and seek.

“But in that moment, if you can pause and identify even one tiny speck of interest in something, then curiosity will ask you to turn your head a quarter of an inch and look at the thing a wee bit closer.”

How often have you turned your head to look at something just a bit longer but decided it wasn’t worth the time to explore? It may not lead to anything, but it might also be the beginning of a compositional “aha” moment that leads to something meaningful.

Never underestimate your own sense of intuition and curiosity; it’s what makes you different from everyone else.

Once I start to feel excited about what I’m seeing, the next question I start to ask myself, the one I think is the most important as I transition from curiosity to composing, is…”where is the light most interesting?” I’ll address light and all of its fascinating characteristics in my next post.

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