contemplative photography

lens-artists: lucky shot

Seeing begins with respect, but wonder is the fuel which sustains vision. ~Steven J Meyers

Autodidact … an interesting word … au·to·di·dact – mid 16th century (as autodidacton ): via Latin from Greek autodidaktos ‘self-taught’, from autos ‘self’ + didaskein ‘teach’ – a self-taught person.

I find resonance with this word as there is an ease of self learning outside a classroom which invites an open exploration that is absent, for me, within a teacher-student relationship. Yet, there is an importance to always keep in mind as noted by The Dalai Lama, “… Autodidact … many many mistakes …”

Autodidact … a journey of self learning … entirely self-directed … creating their own study plans and follow them until they’ve achieved their goal defines the blogging study course I undertook in 2018 … A Photo Study – a 52-week photography learning journey of the basic elements of eight visual compositions, one of which included contemplative photography

Then…a shower thought…maybe that one triple A+ image really only arises after 10,000 intentional shutter releases.  Can you just image being present to, thinking through, and connected with each transient moment 10,000 times?   In reality this would be like setting out on a  journey of 10,000 steps knowing that one will never reach the destination.

Yet, what is an important part of a 10,000 endeavor? To create a triple A+ image? Or to undertake a photo study journey accompanied by fun, education, knowledge, experience, and exploration? I’ll go with the fun of creating and opening myself to the beauty of Mother Earth so this photo study blog journey is an encouragement to – not create a triple A+ image – be more intentionally present with each click of the shutter.

…the creative mind of a photographer is like a piece of unexposed film. It contains no preformed images but is always active, open, receptive, and ready to receive and record an image. ~Minor White cited: W Rowe, Zen and the Magic of Photography

It was a sunny day … sitting in a pocket park … waiting for my husband … writing a letter to my Great Aunt with the intention to periodically pause writing, close my eyes, lift my head, open my eyes, and then visually acknowledging the first thing I saw …

Lucky shot … maybe or maybe not … but looking back it was a profound moment to be intentionally open to what I saw … an eye.

If something happens from pure good luck, it seemingly came out of nowhere, based only on fate and not on anything you did to make it happen.

Thank you Sofia for this week’s challenge.



lens-artists: phone photography

Over the past year a current events discussion group has opened up a number of challenging questions for me: 1) how to move from an understanding and then to thinking and feeling acceptance that each person sees and understands identical situations differently as told within the parable of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant? 2) is there a moral imperative within politics that includes elements of responsibility (short and long term) of actions, empathy and compassion for all life that is harmed (physically, mentally, and emotional), and guiding principles of shame and fear of one’s immoral actions that override the energy of self direction toward a greater connection with humanity? 3) how do I unite the elephant with the diversity of moral principles?

At this point you may be asking, “What does this have to do with phone photography?” Well … yeah …. maybe … these questions do validate that I spend way too much time in my head as well as an excessive amount of time alone. Yet, how does one turn off this search for congruence while world events are like rip currents, undertows, and rip tides that clash with my moral principles and leave me with an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

I resist these tides of hate-filled political and self serving actions that attempt to erode the who of me and the humanity of we.

Yet, since the camera’s eye has opened me to different ways of seeing and moments of gasping beauty could this phone photography challenge invited me begin to explore the first question; that is, to begin to explore how to move out of my conceptions of the restrictive creative use of phones, “they are only good for happy snaps of people, flowers, and places” to engage with different perspectives?

A phone’s happy snap as seen during a photowalk:

to the morning’s sun relationship with a light switch?

Thank you Tina for this week’s lens-artists’ challenge as it was great fun exploring the camera in ways I never thought possible.

lens-artists: unusual crop

Contemplative and landscape photographs submitted in response to Ritva’s lens-artist challenge: encouraging photographers to deliberately defy traditional framing conventions.

Photographing what is … the morning’s light

landscape images cropped with a focus on negative space.

contemplative photography – flash of perception

“… sudden gaps in the flow of mental activity … suddenly you see …

“When the flow of ordinary mental activity is interrupted, mind and eye stop … your surroundings appear vividly. This is what we call flash of perception. …”*

*Andy Karr and Michael Wood, The Practice of Contemplative Photography

reweaving within grieving

the uncertainty within grief’s reweaving memories…

The personal story is a narrative of our unique sense of identity.  We create our identities through the stories we weave onto a tapestry that is formed against the background of our family mythologies. We pull threads from of an assemblage of recalled details from our pasts and weaved them into images that cast us in whatever role corresponds with our current situations, feelings, thoughts, or actions. The colored threads of this tapestry are often re-embroidered to reflect the creative and dynamic process of our perspectives as we shift in, out, and between various roles, feeling states, and cognitions.  As we reflect on our self-created images we are in turn affected by them; therefore, there is an unconscious re-weaving of our tapestries. ~The Meditative Journey with Saldage

shadows of squares -9

wabi-sabi … the beauty within the transition of summer’s fading light to autumn’s slumbering shadows

“We crossed it in a boat, and it is the Province of Sagami. The mountain range called Nishitomi is like folding screens with good pictures. On the left hand we saw a very beautiful beach with long-drawn curves of white waves. There was a place there called Moro-koshi-ga-Hara (Chinese Field) where sands are wonderfully white. Two or three days we journeyed along that shore. A man said: ‘In Summer pale and deep Japanese pinks bloom there and make the field like brocade. As it is Autumn now we cannot see them.’ But I saw some pinks scattered about blooming pitiably. They said: ‘It is funny that Japanese pinks are blooming in the Chinese field.'” *

*Trans: AS Omori and K Doi. The Sarashina Diary, AD 1009-1059 Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares

shadows of squares -8

wandering through an alley’s shadows and light…

The magic of photo walks undertaken with an intention to be open to the silent, “see me.”

The desire of seeing and escaping from preconceived labeling and private musings.

Wakens one from blinding concepts of the mundane to the uniqueness created by light and shadow.

Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares

lens-artist: ephemeral

She with a cup of coffee, embraced within her chilled palms, both blanketed by the first light’s silence … her eyes looking, not seeing the eastern horizon’s slow transition from darkness to light. Suddenly, the sky’s canvas painted by the dance of the sun’s rays and clouds broke through her internal musings, “Wait, wait, please don’t move,” she pleaded as she began a search for her camera and trying so desperately, once again, to win her battle with … the moment by moment changes within life, the ephemeral nature of all that is…

across a concealed blue sky

aimless shifting stories...

gathering and dispersing – obscure particles

painting stories … anew,

moment by moment

Thank you Tina for the week’s lens-artist challenge: Ephemeral