The world is too big to take in all at once. To make sense and beauty of it, you have to look at a small part at a time.
In using a camera, you choose a small part through he view finder. You move the camera, "framing" pictures until you see one that pleases you. Then-click! If you make a good choice, your picture will please others, as well as yourself.
"Wherever you are," says photographer Ernst Haas, "you are surrounded by pictures. The trick is to recognize them." His photograph of a twist of barbed wire shows what he means.
Mr. Haas tells us of ways to practice seeing. Make a simple frame of black cardboard. Take it out of the doors and look through it at everyday things, large or small, far away or near.
At first you may see nothing to interest you. But soon pictures seem to leap (跳) at you through the frame. Oil floating on water makes a picture in rainbow colors. Three people on the steps of an old house form a picture that seems to tell a story.
Did you notice such things before you used the frame? Perhaps not. But, with practice, you soon do not need its help. You see things as artists do. Everywhere, shapes and colors catch your eye. Your mind takes "snapshots (快照)" of their patterns. Then, if you wish, you can share what you see by taking a photograph or by making a drawing or a painting.
Sometimes it's fun to "see small". Did you ever notice the design of the seeds in sliced bananas? Have you looked deep inside a lily? Or seen the starburst in the center of a wet ice cube?
Do you see colors as they really are? When you paint tree trunks, you would make them brown or black. But tree trunks are really gray, purple, yellow-green—almost any color except brown or black!
Do you notice detail? Doing so can be in many ways. Remembering what you see is often useful, too. Practice can help you.
A trick for helping you to remember detail is the double take. Look—don't look—then look again.
