The Telescope Within Us
People always ask me how I paint. They want to know how I choose what to paint and how I begin.
As a teenager I spent a lot of time exploring the river. I loved leaping from boulder to boulder and navigating my route. I soon became aware that “navigating” required my eyes were focus and lock onto my foot’s next landing place. My brain was engaged in deciphering distance, depth, whether the surface was wet or dry - all this information -while telling my muscles ‘how’ to move my legs, bend my knees, and position my feet for landing. Simultaneously my eyes were also scanning my surroundings for any movement or shape that could be a red belly black or tiger snake. (On most adventures I surprised a few snakes!)
This incredible ability to physically leap while assessing distance and level changes was made possible by my eyes changing focus; moving gears from “close up” to “ telephoto” mode constantly.
At times we become stuck, needing to take extra time to scan and do a few close ups, to look further out for another object to triangulate with before our body allows us to take another step. Through rock jumping at the river I learned that making a successful jump depended on calculating the distance and space between objects and we do that by focusing on one object and then another; the much taken for granted Telescope within us.
The Telescope within us enables us to walk, run and drive as well as draw and paint accurately. The Telescope within us is like the “autopilot” setting on an airplane; it is continually calculating measurements both long distance and close up and feeding the data to the decision making part of out brain.
So now I know about the role of focus in judging distance. It wasn't until later at a photography exhibition of large landscapes that I became aware of the difference between the photos I was seeing and how my eyes actually see: everything was in focus in the landscape photos. I was scanning each photo trying to understand the artist's intention. What in the landscape was most important? Was it the sky? The land? Everything? Where was the focus? The Focal Point? Thank goodness our eyes don’t see this way!
Modern cameras have multi focus point abilities. We can activate it by pushing the shutter halfway while simultaneously aiming at our preferred object. This will tell the camera to select that area of the frame to focus.
However, not all photographers activate it, which means on some photographs everything is in focus. Some people (including myself) find this confusing because it seems unclear what the highlight, message or lasting impression is meant to be.
While the landscape in the photograph was real it was not how our eyes would naturally interact with the landscape if we were standing there looking at it in person. Our eyes use the Telescope within to give us focus, continually recalibrating what is important to us moment by moment. Like jumping rocks down a river.
It is not possible to focus on all subjects with our human eyes. Our eyes are designed this way to allow us to judge distance and space between objects, often triangulating three focus points. The Telescope within was essential to our ancestors who relied on hunting and not being hunted in order to survive.
Rock jumping as a teenager taught me that Artists need to provide our viewers a concept - an area of focus, or focal point. A reason for the onlooker to pause and lean in.
