October 12, 2019

The big question concerning your inner vision seen through a mechanical device is whether or not you were truly present in the image creation or just skimming the surface of your exterior reality without thoughts of a meaningful dialogue between you and the subject that presented itself. This dialogue is your inner intuition realizing the potential that is there in the scene and your willingness to search the scene for the elements that will bring forth your internal vision.

One can be casual when taking pictures and sometimes those images turn out to be quite good and this gives one hope that with a deeper sense of your relationship with the outer world can be bridged with a focused intuition that can peel back the barriers present in the scene and allow you a moment of exposure that can capture the relationship you allowed to blossom with the subject that also chose you.

The camera allows you a distraction, a buffer between you and your subject and this can lead to frustration, boredom and an abandonment of the original scene for a more easy, more pleasing duplicate, an easier snap shot many photographers have chosen standing right where you are at now.

Why didn't you stop your mind from over thinking the scene and start using your inner gift, your intuition that will keep you in the present moment as you search for that connection, that relationship that is there but yet undiscovered. Not every image taken can be a winner.  We all go through periods of frustration when the weather, the light, the crowds can all interfere with our connection to the landscape present.  But we must persevere and take notes of the scene that beat us in the first round in order to make us re-group and come back to the scene with greater determination and openness to make a connection that will lead to a photograph you can be thankful of.

We enter into the external world overwhelmed by its beauty and ugliness. We enter this world with the intention to control nature for our own purpose. We enter this world intent on destroying this beauty to reflect our own inner darkness.

Our inability to co-exist with our natural landscape is man’s instinctive nature to transform the external world, the nature of beauty, to fit his terrifying fear of being present in a physical space he has no control of.

If we are to begin to change our own perception of this external world we must let go of our selfish ego and our selfish need to control something we can never control. Our existence in todays world is ego and power. The result of this illusion, that we are the gods of industry, is that the pollution causing climate change will set in motion billions of people forced into migration to find a plot of land that might save them from starvation and dying of thirst.

As a photographer it is your responsibility to walk lightly through nature connecting with your inner purpose to create a frame of nature that you truly physically and mentally connected with, an expression of your inner vision that was present for you through nature's gift.