City of Love

After much thought over our choice of holiday destinations which included Galapogos, Amazon and South Africa, we decided to venture to the City of Lights, mainly due to the zillion ‘Oh you must go to Paris’ responses we got.

Rest assured that Paris is still an European city and one of the main tourist destinations in the world, though you might not think so after reading the rest of the blog.

The train ride from London to Paris was lovely. The arrival at Gare du Nord, considered to be the busiest railway station in Europe, was a SHOCK! The unbearable smell of urine was overwhelming, the bird poo, the cigarette butts, the dirty stained glass, the little food outlets which offered seats covered in bird poo, the lack of information and the lack of proper sign posts, was not what I expected to see in Paris.

Transport

Though old, dirty and smelling of pee, the Metro in Paris is still better than the Underground in London. The Metro runs on time and is regular and costs less than half the price for what seemed like a much better service. However, all signage was in French and there was no clear indication on how to use or buy tickets.There are a few sign boards in English placed at random intervals which I am sure an Englishman planted on the sly and the French would remove if they ever discovered them! Also God help you if you are obese or even slightly chubby  because you will not get through some of the Metro gates, which seemed to have been designed for stick insects. Any kind of luggage, dogs, goats or cattle will most definitely have to be left out as not all stations  provide luggage exits!

Food

The very picky DH (Dear Husband) booked a lovely hotel in what seemed like a nice part of town. With kids dropping their ice creams in wonder at the sight of me clinging to what must have seemed a crossbreed of a Frenchman in his hat, I wandered the streets looking for a café that had an impressive menu. Cafes were aplenty; food was not. All cafes seem to serve the same 5 main courses. Very little choice, very bland food and yes, they speak only French in France. 

Learning to see creatively - book review

A friend recently told my wife that creativity is not something that could be learnt, it’s something that’s within you and that you are born with! (unfortunately, I was not around at that time). The ironic thing is that the statement was made about the book “Learning to See Creatively” by Bryan Peterson – the very book that has dispelled this misconception quite effectively. In his own words, the reason he first wrote the book was “to dispel the myth that the art of image making was for the chosen few”. After selling hundreds of thousand copies, the book being in existence for the past 20 years (original version was published in 1988) and going through so many reprints and revised editions, we can safely assume that he has been successful in doing this at least for those capable of grasping it.

Whilst I can admit that people are born with talent and creativity, to say that another person cannot “learn” to see creativity is very…. well…. silly! Do all those who are successful in art, fashion, design, etc inbuilt with talent only? Do they not go and “learn” their craft from schools, institutes and colleges? Even those who claim to have made it on their own talent are actually “self-taught” – they look at their idols and mentors, “learn” from their style and keep improving based on the feedback they get. This is true for any of the art forms out there. Yes there are people born creative – but the majority of the successful artists (be it art, photography, design, etc) have “learnt” to be creative. The fact is that in order to make a “creative” composition of a painting or photograph, you need to follow several rules (or you need to break the rules…. and to do that you need to know what the rules are…). These rules have been developed over centuries and even artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo have used these rules in their paintings – does that mean that “they” were not creative?

Well having got that out of the way, let’s get down to the review. For those who do not know who Bryan Peterson is (and if you are photographer you surely should know him) – he is a very successful photographer with a highly profitable image stock library, some of which have been sold for thousands of dollars on a repetitive basis. He has been photographing for over 30 years and has been teaching photography for over 20 years. He is also the author of several highly successful books including “Understanding Exposure”, which many consider to be the “bible” of photography (I have this book as well but it does not need a separate review – just a single sentence – “If you want to understand photography, just get Understanding Exposure”).

“Learning to see creatively” has the very laid back and easy to understand style that Bryan used in “Understanding Exposure”. He quickly puts us at ease that we CAN learn to see creatively and then explains how to do this by changing the way we see things around us and expanding our vision. He then discusses the elements of design (line, shape, form, texture, pattern and colour) in detail and then goes on to give the rules like the Golden section, rule of thirds, etc and explains how all these elements come together to make a creative composition. Photography is all about light and a separate chapter has been dedicated to show how light affects composition.

The book is an excellent read and I highly recommend it. Its easy to understand and you quickly grasp the essentials. Design and rules of composition can be highly technical (as shown in Michael Freeman’s book The Photographer’s Eye) but Bryan has kept it all simple so that any beginner or amateur photographer reading it is able to understand. He uses a lot of examples and his own images to illustrate the point. To me, Bryan is like the cool high school teacher who makes things very interesting without trying too hard, so you end up learning without really knowing it.