Many visual artists, especially photographers, are familiar with the statement "You have a great eye." It is usually meant as a complement, and is the reaction of a viewer to an image that is especially pleasing, surprising or awe-inspiring. If this viewer only knew how meaningful that compliment is to a visual artist!

Wing on wingTwo Sandpiper sailboats look like one on blustery Barnegat Bay.

Many beginning visual artists, I would guess, worry from time to time whether they, do in fact have "the eye." Most, I would guess, decide that they do or they would not continue doing what they are doing!

But my question is, where does the ability and talent behind "the eye" come from? Is this something you are born with, or something you develop? And if it is something that you learn, how do you do so?

i have asked a number of artists this question and received a variety of answers. Some say it is just a way you see, something that you cannot define. Others insist that it is learned, and is the product of exposure to many different kinds of art or expressions, and of many different ways of seeing. Dorothea Lange, one of the greatest American photographers of the early 20th century certainly believed it was something you learned over time.

One could say it is, in essence, a difference in opinion as to how one sees or understands the world. When I was in college, I minored in philosophy and one of the big issues we discussed was that there are two main branches of epistemology (i.e., the theory of knowledge). The Platonist believed all knowledge is re-learning, that we are born knowing everything there is to know, but that we forget most of it because of the birth trauma. For a Platonist, everything  exists already, but we just get glimpses of it, mostly through self-examination--in other words, we are born with it.  The Aristotelians, on the other hand believed that we learn by accumulating information and experiences.  There is no preformed idea of what truth or beauty is, but that we develop a conception of it based on what we have experienced in life. Nothing is innate.

BoatsBoats on shore in a marina, as rendered in black and white.

As attractive as the Platonic model is, I agree with Aristotle on this one. We learn by doing, seeing, experiencing. I also believe this is true with photography. We get better at seeing, that is our "eye" gets better the more we see. We get better at knowing what makes a great image through exposure, practice, and experience. It's not all in the genes. Life, the world, everything we do and see, makes us the artist we are as evidenced by what we "see" as experienced by others. I know it certainly is true for me--the more I "see" the better my "eye" gets.

If you have a different vision, please drop me at note and I will be happy to share it with everyone who reads this bog.

Boatyard reedsSimple shoreline reeds at the boatyard, as captured in black and white.