In the end, it’s really just a box. YOU are the actual camera.
ONCE OR TWICE A YEAR, since we started this little small-town gazette almost fifteen years ago, I stop to thank you all for walking this path with us, whether you’re a new subscriber or a wizened veteran. I also use the occasions to re-state how TheNormal Eye happened in the first place. It may be instructive for some, and certainly serves as a mental reset for yours truly.
Photoblogs, at the time we launched, were, and remain, dominated by product reviews and technical tips, so much so that I knew that I myself had to go a different way, that is, if I were to keep the content relevant over time or maintain my own interest in the project. As it happened, I had, at about the same time, just compiled a kind of monograph of a year’s worth of images taken with a single lens, the prime glass known familiarly as the “nifty fifty” The other word for primes being “normal”, since they captured things in much the same way that we naturally see, I decided to title the book The Normal Eye. In spending a concentrated amount of time shooting with just one optic on full manual, I learned as much about my own limits, and options, as those of the lens, with the very word normal taking on an ever-more profound meaning for me.
We come into this world sensing everything on an instinctive level. Eventually, as we grow older and are socialized and hemmed in by the basic behaviors of just getting along in the world, we learn to stray from what was our original “normal”, relying on our own instincts less and measuring “reality” in much the same way that everyone else does. We learn that, to draw the sun, you always, always use a yellow crayon. We color inside the lines. We admire others’ view of basic things, often folding theirs into our own. We learn to mistrust the purity of our own vision, in music, in writing, in what we see. We “de-normal” our eyes. And our photography begins to fall into easily categorized, generalized technique. We shoot inside the lines, with a yellow crayon.
And so, re-learning the habit of seeing everything through the natural filter of our souls requires a deliberate, and dedicated exercise. We have to re-discover our normal eye. Learning to fully see is far more important than whatever gear we choose to help us record what we see. Intentionality becomes all. And so, in this forum, I wanted to be able to chronicle, as directly and simply as possible, what I encountered, daily, on that journey back to “normal”, to the natural. We try to use TNE to act like the kind of photographic diary you yourselves might keep, marking your daily progress and your evolving attitude toward the creative act of making pictures. Because Uncle Ansel was right; they are “made”, not “taken”, and that requires an ongoing sense of self-knowledge. It’s what we strive for at The Normal Eye, and it’s what I hope you and I share.
NOW, THE REASON I ASKED YOU ALL HERE…..
By MICHAEL PERKINS
In the end, it’s really just a box. YOU are the actual camera.
ONCE OR TWICE A YEAR, since we started this little small-town gazette almost fifteen years ago, I stop to thank you all for walking this path with us, whether you’re a new subscriber or a wizened veteran. I also use the occasions to re-state how The Normal Eye happened in the first place. It may be instructive for some, and certainly serves as a mental reset for yours truly.
Photoblogs, at the time we launched, were, and remain, dominated by product reviews and technical tips, so much so that I knew that I myself had to go a different way, that is, if I were to keep the content relevant over time or maintain my own interest in the project. As it happened, I had, at about the same time, just compiled a kind of monograph of a year’s worth of images taken with a single lens, the prime glass known familiarly as the “nifty fifty” The other word for primes being “normal”, since they captured things in much the same way that we naturally see, I decided to title the book The Normal Eye. In spending a concentrated amount of time shooting with just one optic on full manual, I learned as much about my own limits, and options, as those of the lens, with the very word normal taking on an ever-more profound meaning for me.
We come into this world sensing everything on an instinctive level. Eventually, as we grow older and are socialized and hemmed in by the basic behaviors of just getting along in the world, we learn to stray from what was our original “normal”, relying on our own instincts less and measuring “reality” in much the same way that everyone else does. We learn that, to draw the sun, you always, always use a yellow crayon. We color inside the lines. We admire others’ view of basic things, often folding theirs into our own. We learn to mistrust the purity of our own vision, in music, in writing, in what we see. We “de-normal” our eyes. And our photography begins to fall into easily categorized, generalized technique. We shoot inside the lines, with a yellow crayon.
And so, re-learning the habit of seeing everything through the natural filter of our souls requires a deliberate, and dedicated exercise. We have to re-discover our normal eye. Learning to fully see is far more important than whatever gear we choose to help us record what we see. Intentionality becomes all. And so, in this forum, I wanted to be able to chronicle, as directly and simply as possible, what I encountered, daily, on that journey back to “normal”, to the natural. We try to use TNE to act like the kind of photographic diary you yourselves might keep, marking your daily progress and your evolving attitude toward the creative act of making pictures. Because Uncle Ansel was right; they are “made”, not “taken”, and that requires an ongoing sense of self-knowledge. It’s what we strive for at The Normal Eye, and it’s what I hope you and I share.
Thanks for being here.
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