A Love Note...

   It was 8 years ago this week that I began my journey as a contemplative photographer although at that precise moment I didn't know that I was on that path.  That would come later.

A Love Note in the Snow

     It began with a snowstorm, not unlike the one that blanketed my home in white this past weekend.  After that storm in 2005, I ventured tentatively out with my new camera to make my first "Winter Etching".  I thought I'd commemorate that image, that beginning, by sharing this latest manifestation of the theme.

   It is Valentines Day, a day we celebrate love in all its forms.  I wanted to send a love note to all of you who love this wonderful medium as much as I do and are, perhaps, beginning to love the idea of contemplative photography as well.

   I've learned so much during the last 8 years but what I've come to love most about my life as a contemplative photographer is the patience I've discovered and nurtured in myself...the ability to sit quietly and wait for the image to come to me.  The Taoist concept of Wu Wei is not an abstraction for me anymore.  That's how I was finally able to make this photograph.  I sat by the window admiring the delicate shadows etched on the fresh snow and the lovely S-curve of sunlight.  I made a few photographs but there was something lacking and I couldn't put my finger on it.  I would have walked away 8 years ago, convinced that there was nothing here to photograph but that was 8 years ago...

     The birds were very busy at the nearby bird feeder.  I love my little birds and it is joy to see them stuff themselves with the much appreciated seeds.  I was completely content to watch them come and go.  I had given up on the idea of making an image.  The sun was going in and out...sometimes the shadows were there, sometimes not.   Then it happened.  The sun came out just as a little chickadee landed on the shadow branch in front of me giving me the gift of a sweet focal point for what would have otherwise been a boring image.  The tiny bird seemed to know what I needed at that moment.  Yes, I've learned quite a lot these past 8 years.  I can now say that I truly understand the quote by Sufi mystic Rumi...

 "That which you are seeking is also seeking you."