Playing with Lenses… Observation as an Act of Creation

by Jean-Baptiste Duret

I must say that I have always thought observation was an act of being in retreat, that it was a matter of looking and not participating. I did explore this aspect of observation when I was younger and I always imagined myself as an éminence grise (grey eminence) or some kind of shadow man, associating observation with the fact of being unnoticed myself. Recently I’ve realized that observing was also an act of experiencing, of being part of.

In a way, my reflection upon this action was triggered by my desire to do some artwork. I was first attracted by drawing and painting. I had all the tools necessary indeed, good software, a good tablet… and I began to draw some sketches and to color them. As I was not really satisfied with the results, I discussed it with a friend whose artwork was part of that trigger and he told me that I was trying to draw what I was thinking things were and not what I was seeing. Surely that made me think more about it and my exploration of the observation process began.

One can easily be overwhelmed by all that is around and inside to be observed, and observing is not only receiving information through senses, but it is also organizing it in pieces that make sense, creating relationships, creating memories, creating stories… It is a good exercise to realize that everything is connected and that there are no real boundaries between objects, and even that our definitions of objects and the associations we have around them are strongly influencing how we observe, what information we keep and what we discard whole heartedly.

Sight is the sense that is the most strongly associated with observation, it is the sense that most of us focus upon most of the time, though it is not the only sense that we have at our disposal. Even during meditation we rely on images.

When I was a kid, maybe 8 years old, I once went into the bedroom of my parents and put on a pair of my mother’s glasses. I remember looking at my face in the mirror and thinking that it would be quite cool to wear glasses too, it had that feeling of studies or sciences… I associated it with knowledge maybe, and I also thought it had that sexy look. A few years later I realized I was short-sighted. It was quite sudden as I hadn’t seen the change coming, and one day I was forcing my eyes to look at what was written on the blackboard by one of my science teachers. At first I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t want them to know about it and I was secretly hoping that it would all get better as suddenly as I had realized it. Well, obviously it didn’t get better and I’m wearing glasses as I’m writing this article.

With the years passing by, I came to understand that this short-sightedness was giving me the occasion to focus more on what was close, and it was also giving me this misty vision making things feel cosy and soft around me. It is often quite relaxing to take off my glasses when I’m in the metro or in the street and remove the distraction of the outside world. Now that I know how to focus on what is close, I feel the desire to have this clarity of vision again and I don’t discard my glasses as often.

I began to observe how light and colors were interacting together in the outside world. Each object’s colors are influenced by the colors of what is close to them. The light is reflecting upon objects, the colors of the objects influencing what would be the color of the light reemitted to the other objects. Thus a red ball upon a green table would look different to a red ball on a blue table, though it would still be the same color, so to speak. And the ball would certainly cast a shadow upon the table if the light hits it directly. But I was frustrated by what seemed to be my inability to use the tools at my disposal through drawings… it seemed to me that I was unable to use the colors or the brushes in the software to create what I wanted. I realize now that what was most interesting me was the observation process and not so much the time spent in the production of a painting.

That’s why I naturally felt more attracted by the use of 3D software than continuing in the direction of painting. With the 3D software, I only had to create the blueprints of the objects, an aspect with which I felt comfortable, and then I could apply existing textures or create textures with some procedural functions of the programs that automatically applied them on the surfaces of the objects and calculated the different reflections and influences between the environment, the objects and so on. In a few clicks… well not so few, but in less time that it would have taken me to draw them myself, I could render landscapes and objects without having to bother with how the shadow would be cast or how colors would influence each others and so on. I still had to manage the positioning of the objects, the light, the environment, the camera… and I was intrigued by all those parameters you could apply to the camera that were completely esoteric to me. I was modifying them without having any idea of what could be the effect on the final render.

At the same time I was continuing my observations of my outside world, the lights, the objects at different times of the day and different weather conditions, all influencing what I could see and what picture of the world I could create with my perception. It took time, but I eventually began to take pictures with the built-in camera of my mobile phone. First it was a game, and it was quite similar to the 3D software, placing the camera at a certain position, using the light of the environment and rendering the picture just by clicking a button. The first ones were to show my friends objects that may synchronize with what they were experiencing in their lives, and then I was taking pictures of objects that I liked or of arrangements that I found interesting. With the 3D I hadn’t the feeling I was part of what I was creating, though I could really get involved in it for lengthy time frameworks. Doing it with my camera was really giving me that feeling of being part of the environment I was trying to show; I really was experiencing it through my senses.

Soon I felt limited by the possibilities of the built-in camera and I started thinking of buying a bigger one. I wanted something I could manipulate to a great extent and not something completely automatic. My friend Eric had a dream once in which I was using some kind of machinery with many lenses that I was manipulating with great dexterity. At that time I connected it to how I manipulate my different aspects related to my perception because I can feel how I’m always adjusting something and moving my attention swiftly. I could relate strongly to this image of his dream, and thus after some research I bought a reflex camera on the web just before going on holidays a few weeks ago, the trip to Spain would be a great occasion to familiarize myself with it. I spent the time before it was delivered to me to read what I could about photography and cameras. In the process, I also understood what I’d been doing with the 3D software settings all that time, and how I could use them after that. I’m not done with it yet.
During the trip, I had to pay attention more closely to my environment in order not to walk on a misplaced pooh or to stumble upon a stone. And I didn’t want to spend all my time manipulating my camera and missing all the fun of being with my friends. At the same time I was paying attention to the light, its intensity, its direction and how I could use the reflection on different objects or the shade of the trees to create different effects, and I was paying attention to the movements of my friends and my own movement in relation to them.

I realized that when I was too focused on taking pictures to train myself I could miss everything, even what I wanted to take a picture of. But refocusing differently I could find that lizard again, which was actually waiting on its warm stone. I realized that it wasn’t only a matter of adjusting the settings of the device, but also I had to place myself in relation to what I wanted to capture… zooming in and out, moving closer or farther away, climbing on a rock or lying on my belly to be able to have an interesting angle of vision. And with living animals I was seen and they reacted to my presence and to my movements like these pigs in the Meredwen mound that were following us… I was a bit frightened they got too close while I was trying to adjust the settings of the camera and gave up (grin).

All in all, observing my own experience gives me the desire to experience more, and to experience in many directions as well as different aspects of the same things or actions. It is not confined to the outside world and I know that this is only the beginning, so to speak, of this exploration which is for me the exploration of the reality as a reflection of myself.