I think I'm more aware of my surroundings, and also made more aware of my surroundings.

I am more aware of the surroundings when I'm under the cloth: I hear things clearer, I'm more aware of oddball noises, that sort of thing. Or when I'm concentrating on camera movements, meter readings, shutter settings, I'm aware of movements in the periphery of my vision (I have almost 180 degrees of peripheral vision), a good thing for an LF photographer.

And as I compose, I tend to pop in and out of the cloth, so I see things surrounding the area I see so clearly demarcated in the GG. It causes me to shift my camera to include/exclude things I didn't see before. It forces me to pre-pre-previsualize other compositions (sorry I couldn't resist).

One of the things I like about photography so much is that it forces me to be keenly aware of the world around me.

Brian