I have produced a knack for interrelation lately. Ever since my encounter with the photography professor up at Belhaven College, I have almost changed the way I see things through my lens. Interrelation is where you see more than one thing that is connected in a picture. People say that peanut butter and jelly go well together, well, intertwining vines and overlapping bridge girders go well together too. You see, when one looks at a photograph (especially one with a trained eye), he sees more than just what meets the eye. Interrelation between two or more objects is favored in the eye of that professor up at Belhaven. She likes to see that there is meaning in the picture and intelligence in choosing the subjects. Now that I have this knowledge in mind, I am challenged every time I look through the view finder to locate multiple subjects in one exposure. It is very difficult, though, to accomplish this kind of picture, since it is very easy to just take a picture of any old leaf or tree. But to actually relate the leaf to the tree in some way or other, means that you have told a story through your picture, and the picture isn't just a leaf to look at. When I was up at Belhaven visiting the campus, I knew that I was truly blessed while on my visit, I knew that there was a divine intervention for helping me to decide on a college to go to. One of the interventions was that in the student art gallery, the type of art that was being displayed mainly was the photography. Another was how I was able to actually talk to the photography professor (she wasn't actually supposed to be there that day, it was a very big surprise for the art director to see her). While in the art gallery I made my way around the room gazing on the most interesting photos. All of the pictures were in black and white to give emphasis on what was being portrayed through them. My ignorant eye tried only to see the surface of the picture, to appreciate the exposure and angles. But what the art director (Bob) was trying to get us to do, was look for interrelation between what was seen in the pictures. There might have been two or three pictures that interrelated with each other, mounted in one frame, there might have been one, just with multiple subjects. This caught my eager attention for detail and photography knowledge, and I have taken it to heart ever since. A picture is more than what meets the eye, it is what meets the mind.
