The Art of Seeing

Benedict Brain meditates on the ocean and originality as he finds himself all at sea

Benedict Brain meditates on the ocean and originality as he collects seascapes

There’s a saying that if you look through your camera’s viewfinder and you’ve already seen the picture, you shouldn’t take it. It’s already been done! It’s a sentiment I agree with to some extent. However, there is a danger that you might never take another image. Perhaps by taking the picture that has been ‘done before’, you can get the creative juices flowing. Perhaps it can act as a catalyst to evolve an idea and take it into new territory. Who knows?

Taking the shot has got to be better than hanging your camera up. Recently I found myself at sea – for a long time. I was mesmerised by the ever-changing light conditions, the colour of the sea and the texture of the water’s surface. However, every time I looked through the viewfinder, all I could see were images that reminded me of the work of some of the photographers I most admire, such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Shomei Tomatsu and Garry Fabian Miller. They’ve photographed the sea in much the same

way, with a dead straight horizon in the exact middle of the frame. Perhaps it’s a natural creative instinct – one I could not resist, even if I had seen it before, so I started taking and collecting seascapes.

I used the same focal length for every image and found the individual images worked well as a grid, drawing attention to the diversity of the conditions. I may not have not added anything to the canon of ocean images, but I have enjoyed the process and the results. I have many more days at sea scheduled, so perhaps this will be the creative springboard I need to evolve the project further.