History shows humans have long appreciated beauty that has been recorded through a vast range of works of art, much of which now graces museums throughout our human world. Not only visual but also through that of our other senses, especially our ears with music. Visual aesthetics have led the way through paintings, but also includes all manner of things from sculptures, to clothing designs, to custom automobiles, to our pets, to building architecture, and much more. We see beauty and seek it in those we choose as life long partners. Both visually and within inner beings. It gives us happiness. Would you like to cultivate a greater ability to perceive beauty?
My career background was hardware electronics but my passion outside of work has for the last 4 decades been photography, specifically landscape and nature (but not for $$$). Like everything people do, the more one practices and repeats things, the more one learns, increases knowledge, and skill. As a 74 year old looking back at my life's decades, I can absolutely state that photography has been a door to a significantly greater ability to sense, create, and appreciate aesthetic beauty. Although a few photographers do so as a career making a living, far more serious enthusiasts do so for personal reasons, especially capturing images that can help recall moments of our lives that would otherwise be forever lost. Others do so to capture aesthetics. And along the way they also find great value in their increased inner sense recognizing beauty. I will be walking along on a hike in some natural landscape and suddenly feel a sense of beauty somewhere. What is that? Where? So will stop and look, look, look, slowly homing in on what first struck me at a subconscious level.
What I expect most folks don't realize is, the more a person paints or takes photographs, the better they can potentially become at recognizing beauty in all ways. It is thus a door into an aesthetic world that grows and grows that has value to the inner person. One does not go to art school, practice a particular style of art a few years and then continue on through years and decades at an accomplished plateau level. Instead I can state in my own personal experience, that each incremental few years, what I capture, create, and the ability to do so has increased. Long ago I came to understand that beyond usual aesthetic qualities taught in art like the rule of thirds, form, or color science, if one trusts an ability to sense at a glance what provides a inner feeling of beauty, such can lead to a superior ability to immediately size up environments, landscapes, objects, and yes people.
Typically where that shows in some of my own experiences, is when a person stands in a beautiful colorful landscape with flowers and wants to photograph a close-up of just a few flowers. Usually though walking about, they become quite lost in the overwhelming scenery, unable to easily select a small subject. Or a person visits some scenic wonder like Yosemite Valley and has little skill at understanding how to frame what their eyes gawk at in wonder within a rectangular frame. By practicing photography, one is forced to do so. It forces a person to work on what is aesthetic. And such becomes a different experience versus simply looking. At first, results will be mediocre. But over time, of months, years of capturing images, then reviewing results, studying art aesthetics of others, repeating repeating, such will improve. Michaelangelo was not born an artist. It was his journey he developed within the raw material of his extraordinary mind.
History shows humans have long appreciated beauty that has been recorded through a vast range of works of art, much of which now graces museums throughout our human world. Not only visual but also through that of our other senses, especially our ears with music. Visual aesthetics have led the way through paintings, but also includes all manner of things from sculptures, to clothing designs, to custom automobiles, to our pets, to building architecture, and much more. We see beauty and seek it in those we choose as life long partners. Both visually and within inner beings. It gives us happiness. Would you like to cultivate a greater ability to perceive beauty?
My career background was hardware electronics but my passion outside of work has for the last 4 decades been photography, specifically landscape and nature (but not for $$$). Like everything people do, the more one practices and repeats things, the more one learns, increases knowledge, and skill. As a 74 year old looking back at my life's decades, I can absolutely state that photography has been a door to a significantly greater ability to sense, create, and appreciate aesthetic beauty. Although a few photographers do so as a career making a living, far more serious enthusiasts do so for personal reasons, especially capturing images that can help recall moments of our lives that would otherwise be forever lost. Others do so to capture aesthetics. And along the way they also find great value in their increased inner sense recognizing beauty. I will be walking along on a hike in some natural landscape and suddenly feel a sense of beauty somewhere. What is that? Where? So will stop and look, look, look, slowly homing in on what first struck me at a subconscious level.
What I expect most folks don't realize is, the more a person paints or takes photographs, the better they can potentially become at recognizing beauty in all ways. It is thus a door into an aesthetic world that grows and grows that has value to the inner person. One does not go to art school, practice a particular style of art a few years and then continue on through years and decades at an accomplished plateau level. Instead I can state in my own personal experience, that each incremental few years, what I capture, create, and the ability to do so has increased. Long ago I came to understand that beyond usual aesthetic qualities taught in art like the rule of thirds, form, or color science, if one trusts an ability to sense at a glance what provides a inner feeling of beauty, such can lead to a superior ability to immediately size up environments, landscapes, objects, and yes people.
Typically where that shows in some of my own experiences, is when a person stands in a beautiful colorful landscape with flowers and wants to photograph a close-up of just a few flowers. Usually though walking about, they become quite lost in the overwhelming scenery, unable to easily select a small subject. Or a person visits some scenic wonder like Yosemite Valley and has little skill at understanding how to frame what their eyes gawk at in wonder within a rectangular frame. By practicing photography, one is forced to do so. It forces a person to work on what is aesthetic. And such becomes a different experience versus simply looking. At first, results will be mediocre. But over time, of months, years of capturing images, then reviewing results, studying art aesthetics of others, repeating repeating, such will improve. Michaelangelo was not born an artist. It was his journey he developed within the raw material of his extraordinary mind.
