Reshuffling books

I was reshuffling books. I always joke to my wife that the only reason why we would need a bigger house is because the books don’t fit in anymore.

Reshuffling occurred because I recently set up shop above the house and I moved all my “work” books upstairs. I picked up some more this morning. Specifically, I created a Judaica shelf, which then yielded a stack of photography books.

I realised that reshuffling books should be a habit. Because reshuffling shifts perspective. Which in turn sharpens how I see.

I am sharing four books. They came up in the reshuffle and not so coincidentally, they are all about how other people see. I think you can learn from how other people see. It’s not about which lens, which camera or which pencil they use.

It’s about how you translate what you see into what you make.

Lucian Freud is my favourite painter. His work has texture, literally, and he reduced people to the essence of how he saw them through painstakingly long sittings. That does not agree with everybody. The Queen hated her portrait. I once had the luck of seeing Annie Leibovitz work for two days. She does something similar. Not every subject is willing to subject to that, as I saw firsthand. In the last few years I have been following Scott Schuman because of how he sees. The third book is a great anthology of photography. To be clear: I didn’t read what the critic says, I just looked at what they all saw.

How do you see? How do you shift perspective? What can you reshuffle?

How does that show up in your work?