Smoke Alarms and other Visual Clutter
I was thinking about my son as I traveled through Indiana last week. Since I posted about his smoke alarm fascination a couple months ago, Rian hasn’t passed a fire extinguisher, smoke alarm, or emergency sprinkler without a comment. “What’s that daddy?” It is amazing how many fire related objects there are that I never really notice.
Isn’t it interesting how our brains are able to filter what does and doesn’t catch our attention? My trip to Indiana was for a photo shoot for RV’s. Before I started doing work for this RV company I never really noticed RV’s. Now I watch for certain RV brands and know more RV trivia than is probably healthy. You probably had a similar experience when you bought your car and realized how many gray Honda Odyssey’s (or whatever you purchased) there are on the road.
The same thing happened when I started studying design. I started noticing logos, fonts, ads, signs – it was like a switch in my brain was flipped on. When I started to take photography seriously my filter for visual clutter got turned off. The urban clutter of signs, lights, power lines, trees that my brain previously filtered out of my vision became huge obstacles that I could no longer ignore because they ruined my pictures.
As I write this I have been sitting in an airport for about an hour watching people. There is a guy in a suit that must be older than he looks. I watched him sneak glances at the blonde next to me with the long stockings, short skirt, and fake eyelashes. There is a girl behind me who reminds me of somebody I used to know. The guy at the counter has great customer service skills. These are the visible people. Now I scan the room again and force myself to see who has slipped by my radar. It is impossible to pay attention to everybody, so how does my brain decide what to pay attention to and what to ignore? Is there any pattern to it? I don’t have an answer to that question, but I think that making an effort to recognize our biases and filters is a healthy habit to get into. I just hope that my boy grows out of the smoke alarm phase!
