Look Beyond the Obvious

Water Fountain [Canon 5D]
Chimayo, New Mexico  April 30, 2009
(click in the image for a larger version)

On the fourth day of the New Mexico Creative Eye class, after spending the first half of the day in the digital lab working on our images, the class took an afternoon trip to Chimayo. This is a town that is famous for it's small church, the Santurario de Chimayo. The church is renowned for the healing properties of the soil at the site.

Though the church itself is very picturesque in the classic Southwestern New Mexico style, as is the small graveyard nearby, the most interesting image I made that day was of a simple water fountain and its shadow on the wall of the church courtyard. This may be due to the fact that I have visited Chimayo several times in the past and was already primed to look beyond the obvious, but it brings to mind something I have noticed about how we relate photographically to the places we visit.

When we travel to scenic and well known locations, a common expectation is that the most significant images we will make there will be of the "main attractions" (for want of a better word). But I have found that images of simple details, or unexpected ordinary scenes, are more likely to be the visually meaningful and significant photographs made at such locations. The key is to be open to this idea and to practice looking beyond the obvious. By all means go ahead and take the shot of The Church. or The Ruins, or whatever happens to be the primary draw of a given location. You'll see more clearly once you have that out of your system and be more open to finding new and different images where you least expect them.

Coming up June 7 — 13 is my Real World Digital Photography 1 Workshop at the Maine Media Workshops. There's still some room in this class. Click the title for more info.

After that I have a Creative Digital Darkoom Workshop in Connecticut (early July), A Real World Digital Photography II class in Maine (early October), and a Photoshop Creative Collage class in southern New Mexico (early November).