The hunt for the green door
How you can train your eye for detail in a playful way
An eye for detail is very important for us photographers. Whether it's hair sticking out, smudged make-up or an outfit that doesn't fit. Recognizing and improving small details can make a big difference in the final picture.
Of course, you could say "I'll fix that in post" – but let's be honest: anything you can correct beforehand will save you a lot of work later when editing.
Today I'm going to give you an exciting and interesting method for training and sharpening your eye for detail. And the best thing about it: you can use this method anywhere – on a walk, on the way to work, on vacation. The fun works in three simple steps:
Find a topic – set off – take a photo
First, think about a topic that you would like to focus on your way to work, on your walk or while strolling around on vacation. Incidentally, this can be absolutely anything. A few examples?
- Green doors (or any other color)
- Arrows and shapes that represent arrows
- Objects that look like faces
- Cracks in the environment (road, walls, fabric ... )
- Certain patterns and lines
- Objects with numbers on them (I would leave out house numbers though, that's too easy)
- and so on
Have you chosen your topic? Wonderful! Then go out and look for exactly those things that match your topic. Whether you take a camera with you or photograph everything with your smartphone doesn't matter in this case – the important thing is that you consciously pay attention to your topic along the way. By walking through the streets with this awareness, you will notice things that you would never have noticed otherwise. This will develop your eye for detail – but also your surroundings.
And the best thing about this method is that you can use it whenever you're out and about. Planned or spontaneous. On my last walk, I spontaneously decided to do another round on the subject of "arrows and everything that makes an arrow shape" for this post. You can find examples here in the post.
A little bonus tip: To get more out of this exercise, don't just take photos of the objects, but try to present them creatively. This way, you'll practice and train your image composition skills at the same time.
