The Joy of Seeing | Visual Maturity

Visual Maturity is a phrase I heard my coach Bryan Petersen say on one of his workshops.

It stuck in my mind.

I gave this a lot of thought - VISUAL MATURITY.

I understood the syntax but not entirely as applied to creating images initially.

Slowly but surely it began to make sense.

Visual Maturity is about being visually ready 24/7. The only time I am off is when I go to sleep.

My Camera is with me all the time, even if it means a trip to the store for a pint of milk.

Visual Maturity is also about understanding the visual vocabulary of all my Lens.

This has been a long study.

Having done 30 day drills of using nothing but 16mm, 18mm, 35mm and 50mm - these are my street photography range, I fully understand how these Lens behave when confronted with a possible moment. These focal lengths are all prime lens but equal to my 24-70mm or 17-70mm or 18-55mm on my zooms.

My eye and brain have matured into a human focal length machine- it’s really quite amazing to think my brain can switch to a classic 35mm field of view one minute and shoot a Portrait at 55mm the next.

Visual Maturity I feel also addresses the emotional content in the moment - the mood, vibe and gesture.

Being able to recognise this took time.

The gesture is the heart beat in the moment.

Seeing it,

Recognising it

And capturing it is the maturity in action.

All the elements of heart, mind, intuition and technical competency all come together at 1/250th second or faster on the streets.

A slower contemplation means more time to evaluate things.

It’s an on going process of learning about how I see the world and my relationship with it.

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