What Do You See?
- Ryan Wilmot
- Jan 18, 2020
- 9 min read

See In Detail
The talent for deduction starts with what you can observe. Now I use the term observation instead of see, because seeing things is sort of passive. You can spend all day seeing plenty but never apply meaning or description to what you see. In this short post I wanted to explore a little bit of observation and deduction to learn a little bit about a house I saw on my way to work.
Look At The Broad Picture
The first things I see in this photograph are the big things. I see the ornate iron fence, the trash receptacle, the grass, the vehicles in the driveway, and the sense of greenery. Now I need to take those big picture things and look at them specifically to find details. I use this information to deduce what I can about my neighbor. Now, what I don’t want to do is make deductions BEFORE I gather the data. So I am making no assumptions, just filling in my observation sheet.
Making Deductions
Making deductions isn’t hard, but often times they can feel elusive because we don’t know what we are looking for. So before after you have made observations, start filling in information about what your observations tell you. This could be things like, ‘what kind of income does this person have?’, ‘how long has this item been here?’, ‘what is the usage of the item’? Questions, questions, questions. You need to ask good questions to form deductions.
Receptacle - What Do I See?
I see the Santek label on a sturdy grey bin. It has wheels, a lid that can open and close, as well as a handle of some kind. On the wheels and portions of the bin, I notice there is also some dirt attached.
Fence - What Do I See?
The fence is made up of iron. Some of it painted black, some of it painted a rust color. More specifically, the large stakes are painted rust and the smaller ones that sit in between them are painted black. On the main gate, there are two dogs pointing at each other and are painted white. The small stakes on the gate are painted white at their tips. Additionally, there are four red reflectors on the gate. There are two columns made of bricks or slate. They have sandstone appearance to them. At the top of the fence there seems to be a small light post.
Greenery/Nature - What Do I See?
To the left on the picture, it looks like there is an oak or pine tree. Additionally, I do see grass as well as dirt on the street and the driveway.
Driveway/House - What Do I See?
Besides the dirt driveway, I see at least two vehicles. There is a large Dodge 3500, and some kind of off road vehicle to its left. In the picture, I don’t really see the house to well but it also has a similar rust/orange color that the fence post has, although it is a little lighter.
It's time to exercise your deductive skills. The challenge begins here. For each of the topics above, spend some time thinking about what information you can extract from the observations that we have made.

You forgot that the lid was open and it appeared that it was empty, not to mention outside of the gate. This implies that this picture was taken on the day of the week that the trash was emptied, a.k.a trash day. And considering that it's open and empty, the garbage truck must have already past.
Sorry if I got that wrong, just wanted to point that out.