Don't Look with Your Eyes, Look Through Your Lens

Wednesday 27 April 2022, 14:28 by Frank Doorhof | 4,388 views | 6 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You probably know the feeling. The perfect location, you are completely impressed and you take your photo. You are sure it will win every prize because what an incredibly beautiful scene.

And then you get home and search yourself silly for that fantastic photo, and the only one you can find from that location is... well, let's keep it polite, not really impressive.

How does that happen?

Our eyes work very differently from a camera lens. People sometimes say that a 50mm lens emulates the human eye, but in my view that is complete nonsense.

Our eyes can switch between zooming in and zooming out in the blink of an eye. Just look at a scene and suddenly you see a tree that really stands out.

Without you noticing, your brain creates a kind of 'frame/zoom' around that tree, which makes you focus on it even more. A lens can never capture that.

As well as visual input, smell, sound and your state of mind also play a part.

A situation in which you are completely impressed by, for example, a waterfall. The roar of the water, the spray on your face and the smell of cold, moving water, combined with the smell of the forest and the light rain that is on its way, all contribute to your experience.

Go to a waterfall feeling depressed, and then go there feeling very happy. You experience exactly the same thing, but completely differently.

So how can you capture this properly with a camera?

In itself, 'simple' (but don't be fooled, this is incredibly difficult). You must not look with your eyes, but with the lens.

So hold the camera in front of your eyes and look at the scene that way for a LONG time. You will often soon see that your viewpoint is not interesting at all. But lie down on the ground, or use an extreme wide-angle lens or a really long lens, and you get a completely different image.

For me, a good landscape is a photo that takes me there. Strangely enough, these are almost never photos taken from eye level with a 50mm lens. Even though that is normally how you experience it.

So, look for the angles and photograph with your lens, not from your human viewpoint.

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About the author

Frank Doorhof blogt dagelijks in het Engels op zijn website en geeft wekelijks workshops model fotografie in zijn studio in Emmeloord, maar ook op locatie in binnen en buitenland. Van beginners tot gevorderde, iedereen kan bij Frank terecht. Ook voor specifieke 1 op 1 workshops, of maatwerk voor groepen.

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6 comments

Jacqueline Boekelman wrote on Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 12:40 | reply
What you say is correct , I am always amazed by how the photo can be such a disappointment compared to what you see with your eyes but how you explain it about the lens challenges me once again to reinvent the wheel for myself because I had actually already stated that our eyes can never render a photo so beautifully and partly you say that too , you simply have to learn to find , look and search in your / the lens for exactly such an experience in a photo , an answer that makes me very happy because I am going to do it , learn to look with my lens instead of my eyes , thanks !
Translated from Dutch.

Ernst wrote on Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 13:00 | reply
I always first look around me to take in the surroundings and try to enjoy them. Only then do I pick up my camera. As soon as you start taking photos, you need to take the time to isolate what you find beautiful from the surroundings with your camera by looking through the lens and paying close attention to keeping the horizon straight . I personally prefer (extreme) wide-angle, but you can also take interesting landscape photos with a telephoto lens.
Translated from Dutch.

frank doorhof wrote on Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 13:40 | reply
@Ernst
Looking around first is super important, then the initial WOW is gone and you have much more peace of mind to choose the right elements as well.

As for telephoto or wide, I think it differs per subject, a train station at 12mm can be brilliant, a landscape can look cool at 12mm but also at 400mm, it's simply the photographer's choice :D
Translated from Dutch.

frank doorhof wrote on Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 13:42 | reply
@Jacqueline
What I sometimes do with students is give them the assignment to shoot only with a Polaroid for a week, every photo costs money and every photo means one less Polaroid. So you really start thinking about the photo, you will quickly notice that you shoot MUCH less but take MUCH better photos.
Translated from Dutch.

Robert wrote on Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 15:39 | reply
Hi Frank, everyone looks with different eyes and experiences the situation at that moment differently. Fortunately. Then beautiful things come to the surface that suit you. They are your memories of it at that moment. Quickly, briefly shot, meh, your impression. Great.

Robert
Translated from Dutch.

frank doorhof wrote on Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 16:28 | reply
@robert
In itself, I agree that everyone sees things differently, absolutely.

What the article is based on is the fact that it very often happens that you come home with photos that precisely do NOT capture what you saw because you try to capture with a lens what your eyes see
Translated from Dutch.

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