Seeing With My Ears

Several years ago, I was planning on running a photography workshop in the eastern Sierra, working with a small group of students to help them to "see" — to go deeper in taking a photograph than merely liking what they see. For me, photography is more than just a visual medium. Being in a grove of golden aspen in the fall, or in a slot canyon in the Utah canyon country, involves more than using one's eyes to "see" the image. It involves the other senses as well.

Today, my wife and I were at North Lake Road, a dirt road that creeps along a steep hillside and then snakes along North Lake, occasionally disappearing into a tunnel of trees. As she ventured off to take photos of her own, I took my camera into a small grove of aspens and pines and just stood there, looking around, seeing if there was anything that visually inspired me.

But as I stood there, something else occurred to me: seeing an image isn't just visual. It truly involves all your senses. You listen for the rustling of the leaves caused by a cool breeze. You smell the fragrance of the pine trees around you. You feel the warmth of the autumn sun. And, being a musician, I connected all those senses to one: seeing with my ears.

A photographer doesn't simply capture the visual beauty of a place. They are also trying to communicate their emotional response to that place — to distill into a single frame something of what they saw, heard, smelled and felt. Those things become part of how the photographer sees. And somehow, through composition, light, color and timing, we try to allow the viewer to sense something of what it was like to stand there — not simply that it was a beautiful place, but that it meant something to us.

As I spend time over the next several days photographing here in the eastern Sierra, I plan to slow down and see with my ears.

Photo of North Lake Road, Bishop Creek Canyon, eastern Sierra, California. Smartphone capture.