When learning to photograph, we are taught about exposure (f-stop, aperture, ISO etc.) and the rules of composition.

Rarely are we taught how to look. It is somehow expected that we are good at looking and know how to look, only because we enjoy photography.

But there’s a difference between looking and composing a photograph. Both are important, but which one comes first?

In my mind, the art of looking - perception, you may call it, is the initiative. That’s what comes first. Without perception, there can be no photograph.

Composition is important, but this is the art of arranging whatever is in front of us into the frame. We have already performed the seeing. Arranging it through composition is a different matter.

When being more seriously involved in photography, I find it important and necessary to spend some time searching for awareness. Awareness of the choices we make, not only the technical ones, but also why we choose to photograph the way we do, why we return to certain visual circumstances - why and how we do what we do.

And quite frankly, awareness is important in every aspect of life. While photography is a very large and important part of my life, my awareness has a far wider reach than that.

How far does your awareness go? What comes first, in your book of photography? The hen, or the egg?

Best visual and perceptive regards,
Malinka Persson