Sunday, November 3, 2013

PhotoTao Card #47 - Difficult Recognition

Difficult Recognition
To take a single breath and feel at ease
is to begin the journey of Tao.  To have
begun a journey 100 times and still not
arrive is better that to not have begun
at all.

- Exercise -
Each day we begin again.  We carefully
file away what we have learned.  Today,
open up that cabinet of experience.  Choose
a subject you have photographed in the past
and begin again.  Has your vision changed?  
Has your experience of the process
evolved?


   Every year, usually several times during the year, I visit this small pond near my home. I've written about it before, in the post Autumn Reflections. I don't think I would ever tire of photographing this little body of water.

    In this photograph I've tried to reconcile the trees that grow along its bank to the pond itself. This is a particularly lovely grey birch which grow abundantly in this area of Maine.

    I was thinking more about composition than detail but I noticed the two shelf mushrooms and I thought they added so much to the overall image...the way the light just catches the edge of the lower one.

    I think my vision has subtly but positively altered over the years of photographing this pond. I find my mind now is always drawn to the small details of the landscape far more than it was in the past...and color. I regard color now in a way I never did before.


   Just for the fun of it, I converted the first image into a monochrome image. What a totally different feel one gets from it!  Eight years ago I probably wouldn't have even considered this view of the pond...when I was a completely confirmed monochromist!

    Every step of your journey opens your eyes to a new way of regarding your world. Almost with every image we make we subtly alter the way we proceed from then on. What a wonderful adventure it is!

  Do you ever consider your photographic work as an adventure?  Stop and think of your time exploring the world with your camera as a journey...where have your been?  Where would you like to go?



   

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