I was wondering recently whether there was any real difference between being a spectator and an observer. A spectator can observe, and an observer can spectate, right?
When I think of a spectator, I think of watching sports, especially sports I don’t play. I don’t really follow sports anymore, or sporting teams, because I’m at a stage in life where I choose different forms of entertainment and I don’t want to take up passive hobbies. I want very much to engage in the world around me. Sure, I’ll take those free hockey and basketball tickets that I get sometimes through The Firm (“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!” I was told many years ago), but I won’t pay for them. I’ll spectate, but I’ll bring my camera and take photos — of course! Then it can no longer be considered passive, I suppose.
When I think of an observer, I think of someone who will study the situation and be more attentive to what’s going on. However, when I look up the definitions, the word observer comes up a lot under spectator. Is it an expectation, then? Does that mean the observer is expected to notice more than a spectator? And a spectator merely an onlooker? Is whether a person a spectator or observer self-identified, or a judgement call by someone else?
Or, more importantly, why do I even think about stuff like this when I should be asleep?
Ever since I picked up a camera with the intention of making a photo that I could be proud of is when I stopped taking snapshots and started working on my observation skills. To draw a comparison, I’d say a spectator is taking a snapshot and an observer is “making a photo” — a literal translation for many languages. Some people call it “the eye” — and we all have two! why don’t we say “the eyes”? — but I think it’s much more deliberate than that, and it takes a lot of practice. I look at photos I took in my first year of owning a digital camera (2002) and they were nothing special. Maybe they improved in 2003, but I kind of doubt it. If I had “the eye” back then, it was closed! What I think people forget about is how much practice is involved, technical trial-and-error, and experimentation. But most of all, observation — and that takes practice, too. You can see the same things every day, but do you really notice what you’re looking at?
Sure, I take a lot of photos. But I try to make them all different, especially of things that look the same. The world becomes a much more interesting and exciting place when you’re observing it with both eyes open. In macro photography, for example, it’s a world within a world. From the sky, aerial photography becomes a bird’s eye view of civilization. Imagine photography in space!
Alright, time to close my eyes for a few hours…
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