July 3, 2019 

Picture taking feeds the ego and any image no matter the content brings to the image taker a since of power over the external world. We are trapped physically in this reality but a photograph takes from the scene a conduit to self praise and awareness.  A photograph conquers the infinite details overwhelming the person behind the camera, by reducing your visual sense to a fragment of the scene that caught your eye and the hunt is on for you to capture it not with your own intuitive abilities but with the ability to reproduce a duplicate of the scene that caught your eye through the technology of the camera. 

This gives one a sense of power and control over his selective nature and allows him an excuse, by over studying a scene he could become intimidated, this would tie up to much time to untangle his desire for an image that actually reflected his inner being. 

But because the majority of people take pictures as a means of enhancing memories they are not immersing themselves in the scene looking for that detail, that composition that reflects their inner artistic vision. 

What is it that demands we take pictures of our lives, is it a means to document ourselves, our family, our friends, our lifestyle, our reflections, our ego and its since of demanding exterior attention, we are full of self importance, by manipulations of our outer facade that we become addicted to promote, by taking pictures of everything we do, no matter how trivial, just to showboat and promote ourselves on social media. 

If you really new yourself and the gifts present in your private world you wouldn't need to exploit your physical body to the greedy eyes of the masses.

This addiction of becoming anything and everything is undermining your ability to think for yourself, to be present in your mind and not a fashion show that ends abruptly with the next best and greatest ever promotions of a new fad.

Where is your uniqueness if you are creating a facade, a personality that isn't you? This persona is an imitation, an excuse, a deflection because of self doubt, not trusting your inner being. You are afraid to be just you, so you try and create movement away from your fears of self discovery and swim in shallow water's surface glitter. 

When you go out in public are you present in your moments.  Are you aware of yourself and not the movement of time, as you begin to construct an inner perception that is worth exploring. You are not in the external world to entertain your ego with flighty poses and smiling teeth. You are there to create an image from your inner being that will be a revelation to you once you have studied the scene beginning to unfold through your concentrated effort and unique perspective.  

You are not there to get your picture taken. You are there to express an intuition through a visual artistic skill that is unique only to you.

You were there but were you present in your inner unique perspective? Or did you lose interest in the external world's possibilities because the intellect that has trained us to be aware of the importance of time and to be aware of our duties to conform to the world's repetitive moments of our herded instincts made you feel overwhelmed and self conscious with the worlds external facades, so you packed up your inner talent and followed the cattle with their heads down marching in step into societies corral.

Don't allow fear of self revelations in the public arena stop you from being yourself, expressing your inner talents.

You must open yourself up visually, listening to your inner instincts, that is drawing you toward your subject.  You must be patient and observant taking in every detail that intrigues you and stimulates your intuitive force to pursue the image just beginning to form in your mind.

I sometimes feel like a trained animal going to all the same city views that I have photographed for decades.

I still have to demand my intuitive force to direct me to new subjects and new perspectives of the same old themes.  

We have been trained to ignore the infinite possibilities present for image creation and focus only on the mundane, the ordinary. This physical space that we move through doesn't care about your art, or your unique perspective.  

You need to have your awareness heightened and your vision looking past the facades of our external structured existence by seeing deeper into the subject that is present and allow your visual interaction with the scene begin to reveal a connecting force between you and details that are beginning to form in your mind's image.

The call to the narrow myth of conformity is created by the powers that control our lives. They want a uniformed approach to controlling the public view and a person's inner talents. 

We seek to become the stereotypical reflection in the cameras eye rather than becoming our inner truth through a unique inner vision of the reality we think is always stable. It is anything but stable and is always changing and creates in the photographer a vital significance that needs exploring without prejudices, for if we want to create great images we must be open in our minds eye and in our hearts emotional source, to seek all the subjects that instill in us a universal acceptance of human beings and nature.

A photograph is a message to ourselves that we were present in the photograph even though we weren't seen.  But our presence is insinuated by the image that we created.  We can describe the image through the lens that framed the picture. Proof is our recollection of the events that led up to scene being captured.  

Can we really state we were there just by a picture that doesn't expose your presence? Photography is more than just being present behind the viewer. Photography is interacting with your subject, it is immersing yourself in the scene looking for artifacts in this physical space that you are connecting with, that will bond your instinctive understanding of the scene with the subject and the creation of an image that is a reflection of your inner being. 

A good photograph has a deep connection with the subject presented and with the internal eye looking through the view finder. We must be present in the scene through our ability to identify with the contours and imaginative visual elements that will eventually make up the foundation for an image we will make.

Your inner world presented through external expression.