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Practicing Mindfulness In Photography

Lesson 5 from: Mastering the Art of Photography

Chris Weston

Practicing Mindfulness In Photography

Lesson 5 from: Mastering the Art of Photography

Chris Weston

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Lesson Info

5. Practicing Mindfulness In Photography

By deconstructing one of his all-time favorite images, Chris shows how approaching photography with a mindful eye can help you create photographs that show much-photographed subjects in a new and compelling way.

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction - Three Steps To Creative Photography

03:48
2

Firing The Creative Mind - Part 1: The Camera Points Both Ways

03:10
3

Firing The Creative Mind - Part 2: Letting Go Of Judgement

06:53
4

Firing The Creative Mind - Part 3: Detaching From Outcomes

04:12
5

Practicing Mindfulness In Photography

02:43
6

Finding The Visual Narrative

02:39
7

Behind-the-scenes: Naples

07:52
8

Seeing Beneath The Surface Of Things

02:30

Lesson Info

Practicing Mindfulness In Photography

when I first started thinking about this cause this particular lesson was titled Mindfulness Exercises for Photographers. I was planning to tell you how I get into a mindful state when I'm taking photographs and offer a few exercises you could try, but when I thought about it, I honestly couldn't think what to say. The thing is, when you put a camera in my hand, mindfulness comes naturally to me. To be fair. Most other times, as anyone who knows me well, we'll tell you I'm completely mindless. The camera to me is like a trigger. So rather than tell you what I do, I thought I'd show you what happens when I'm on location and my mind is triggered. Take a look at this scene here and tell me what you see. Now let me tell you what I see as well as a triangle. There's a bold circle created by this boulder. There's an implied horizon line, which I've positioned just above the center line, which draws your attention to the foreground. Importantly, there's also a small white line under the bould...

er, which creates separation between it and the water. There are lines on the mountain texture in the rocks and the vivid orange color in the land complemented by the blue in the sky. More subtle but critical to the composition is this small triangle in the foreground, which is an almost perfect mirror of the mountain. Here is another example. What do you see here? When I first came across this location, I wasn't exactly inspired is a derelict industrial area of a small French town. But after a moment's contemplation, I was drawn to the water tumbling over the weir. I could see line and pattern, and the quickly descending sun was just beginning to add a touch of color. I set up my camera frame, the shot I was visualizing in my mind and waited for the deeper glow of sunset. And this is the image I talk by cropping tightly, isolating the water and removing the distracting background environment. I have drawn attention to the key subjects, the line and the pattern of the falling water. I've used an evenly positioned Baroque diagonal to lend equal weighting to the to half of the frame and used white balance to add a blue cast that complements the orange yellow reflection of the setting sun. There are many ways to get yourself into a mindful state before you start a photography session, and no one way will suit all people. So I suggest trying different exercises and seeing which one works best for you in the resources panel below. I've provided some ideas and links to websites and articles that I've found useful in the past. It's not a definitive list, but it's a decent place to start.

Ratings and Reviews

Gary Hook
 

Wow, what a wonderful journey. I love the concept of telling a story with one's photos and as I go through past images, I'm seeing them in a much different perspective. That's the good news, The bad? The lost opportunities I never 'saw' before; however that is a good thing. There is so much to internalize with the material so that it can get out of the head and into the 'heart'. I also found the concept really helps me with composition, both in camera and post. Biggest take away, as Chris underscored in his closing, is to slooooow down, take the time and feel it. Don't be so quick to leave one scene as there remain other aspects, yet to be discovered. A great experience that I truly enjoyed Thank you

Glenda
 

I loved this course - in particular the latter part of it in which he demonstrated how post processing lets you really tell the story of the image. Another fabulous course. Thanks Chris & thanks Creative Live.

Abdullah Alahmari
 

Thanks a lot to mr. Chris Weston This course is great and It is a 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 course for me. Beside the other course ( mastering photographic composition and visual storytelling) both courses are Complementing to each other and highly recommended.

Student Work

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