Vision training: the role of play

“Play is the highest form of research”.  Albert Einstein

It is very difficult to make an important scientific discovery. Even Einstein, who is an absolute legend, only made a few major contributions to physics. Most of the ideas you may have when doing research don’t really lead to much.

If you carry out research as work, it comes with a purpose, namely to make an important discovery. And since those are very hard to come by, you are very likely to get frustrated. And frustration. a killer of creativity, generally begets more frustration. Since there is a limit to how much frustration anyone can take, eventually you give up. On the other hand, when you are just playing around, you don’t expect anything but enjoyment out of it. In that case, you can just keep doing it for a long time, exploring lots and lots of ideas. And the more ideas you have, the more likely you are to find a good one.

I like to go out and shoot for myself with no expectations. Just playing around with new techniques and/or camera features. Lately, I have been playing with the multiple exposure feature of my camera. Just to see what happens. In order to develop some intuition about the kind of subjects that work for this kind of technique, I have been exploring many possibilities. Along the way, I had a happy accident, with the lone tree below.

Multiple exposures of a lone tree
I used nine exposures of this tree, in Princes Street gardens, Edinburgh, each time moving the camera down a little bit. This effect is achieved in camera, not in Photoshop (although you could do something similar with Photoshop).
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1 Comment

Hi!
I think your pictures are beautiful. I am an Norwegian lady trying to make a different kind of photos, but I think it is difficult. I have tried panning up and down, taking photos of trees, but I am not so lucky or clever s you are :-)) I have just bought the Canon 7D Mark II, and there are many things I do not understand in using it. But I m interested taking multiple pictures. Do you know any software to use? I think Photoshop is too difficult to use.
I so wish that <i could be as good as you:-))
Regards Anita Elfstrand, Oslo, Norway.

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