Perceptions, light, click of the shutter and then you’re done, that’s how you create a photograph. Surrender to love without possessing. That is the
first key to understanding what perception is. A photographer is not in control no matter what the subject or lack of subject is. A photographer is only a seer of light. The judgment of what you do with the click of the shutter is perception.
Second key is light: light is alive and stirring, light has sounds, scent, colors, patterns, textures, emotion and flow. To see the light you need to practice. Concede that you don’t know everything there is to know about light. Concede that you do not have to know everything about light. Know that you will have to be present and accountable for what you do with the light. Practice being a seer of the light. Be a poet of the light and enjoy this part.
Third key: be humble, uphold and a mind-set of gratitude. When people tell me that they are a photographer/artist my answer is always the same; already? My follow-up question is always “how do you know?”
Fourth Key: write your ideal moment. This is mine:
I raise the camera to my eye looking through the viewfinder. I go into a place of silence, a place of inner stillness. My environment could be filled with noise and rumblings of a passerby or I could be in the forest sitting next to a raging stream. At that instant of composition I go into stillness, simple mindfulness. My consciousness changes into the environment that surrounds me, moving into a moment of unearthing discovery. Looking to see the unseen to find the spark where God lives and art grows. Following that I move into the “yes of the blessing”, when I capture that sacred frame that lived only for that finite second of stillness. To conclude, I move into the point of celebrating the gift, that presence of grace that I alone was able to see, experience, document and share with the world.
Conclusion: the light is never the same twice, as it should be.
