Thank you for putting it that way. I know what you mean by looking until the object becomes value, edge and light; That kind of attention is a big part of what attracts me to photography. I haven't really stopped—I still find myself coming back to these quiet studies, although sometimes I switch to another topic. I think the viewing continues even if the subject changes.t
That shift you describe, where the subject stops being a person or a thing and becomes just edge and value, that is the same threshold I cross when a costume stops being fabric and becomes shadow-shape. The viewing continuing even when the subject changes makes total sense to me. I carry silhouette problems from one painting into the next one, even when the character is completely different. It is the same eye, just pointed somewhere new.
The way you put that, looking until the thing becomes value and edge, that's the place where all the real decisions happen. I'm after something similar with color mixing, that point where the image stops being "a flower" or "a hill" and becomes just temperature and contrast and how one passage sits against the next. Switching topics but staying in that same quality of attention, that feels right to me. The muscle you build looking at one subject absolutely carries over when you turn to something else.