Read,learn, shoot, reflect, read more, shoot more

I think perhaps I have been visiting Clubsnaps too often (BnS section) and shooting too seldom. The Shooting Thematically workshop, conducted by Mr Chow Chee Yong, that I attended over the weekend awakened me to that. Over the last 6 months I have accumulated so many books on photography - composition, philosophy, photoshop, the works of famous photographers. I should be picking them up instead of reading up on the latest specs of the latest cameras or scouring the forums for bargains. Read, learn, shoot. Reflect, learn, read and shoot more.

Changing Perspective: Adopting a new eye level. (From the Tao of photography: Seeing beyond seeing.)

Pretend to be shorter, taller, different. Go to unusual places. Look at your surroundings from uncommon perspectives. Be a cockroach; crawl under the bed, hide in a closet. Be a bird, sit on a branch and look around with your bird's eyes.

Explore new avenues. How would a the cat lying on a car's hood see a parade? What would a grasshopper see peering up through blades of grass. What does the salad in your refrigerator see when you open the door?

Expand your repertoire of photographic positions: Kneel, Squat, Lie down, on your back, your side, your stomach. Stand on your head and watch how the world changes.

Avoid stiffness. Approach your subject quietly and move around it, under it and above it, then back off and observe how the background changes. Keep moving and observe how new relationships can be created by changing your eye level. A cup of tea in the background suddenly becomes a skyscraper when we step a little closer and view it from below.

Experiment with juxtaposition of objects, create a new world, permit yourself to see as never before. See the world dance.