Keep Out – Eau Gallie Arts District
Marcel Proust, French novelist best known for his novel In Search of Lost Time once said, “The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Seeing new things in familiar places certainly takes having new eyes.
I have an ongoing personal photography project where I walk the same streets of a local arts district with the intent of seeing this familiar place with new eyes each time I go. I am not out to make an award-winning image. I go on the same photo walk with the hope that I’ll discover something new to photograph while exercising my creative vision. On each new walk I find myself excited about what I might find.
One thing I have learned is that if I approach my photo walk as Marcel suggests, I need to clear my memory and walk around my familiar landscape with the curiosity and playfulness of a child. . . looking with new eyes.
I recently took another photo walk around a very familiar landscape, the Eau Gallie Arts District, near my home. I have probably taken this same walk a dozen times with camera in hand. Sometimes, I don’t come back with new images. I guess I did not have new eyes that day. But many times, I am surprised by the new discoveries.
Here are some new discoveries from my last photo walk through the Eau Gallie Arts District. Not the most remarkable photos I have ever taken, but new discoveries from a very familiar landscape.
The next time you go to a familiar place with camera in hand, do as Marcel suggests. Go with new eyes. See what new things you discover. As always, keep making discoveries and may only the remarkable photos be yours.
Chuck
Chuck Palmer 
Brilliant article. I have the opportunity to share a photo Walk with 2 grandkids and will now follow their lead instead of my own. Again thanks for the inspiration. You are a great teacher.
Thanks so much Marcia. Those grandkids will certainly teach you to see with new eyes.
You are right Chuck it is always and other way to look at the things we saw before . It makes life interesting, it just needs to be awake and make a little effort and keep some
interest. As photographers you got beautiful photos from this walk.
Thanks for your comments Eliane. You are one of those photographers with a creative eye.