Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Seeing the Unseen...

       
Everyone sees the unseen in proportion
to the clarity of their hearts.

- Rumi

   I am asked countless times, "How do you see what you see?"  After all, we all have the same eyes, we can stand on the same spot in the landscape and yet, we all see things differently.  I've thought a great deal about this idea, the idea of perspective, because it all comes down to that in the end.

   We are confronted everyday with an overwhelming and, at times, over loaded range of visual imagery.  When you go out with your camera you have literally millions of choices.  Why do some people "see", or choose to frame, certain parts and not others?  Rumi suggests it is a "heart thing".

   I also see it as a "why thing"...why are you making the photograph in the first place?  Is it merely to record a place and time...freezing it for you to savor later on?   Or are your responding to the whispers of the landscape?  Is seeing more a function of hearing?  That is the basis of all my visual listening exercises.

   Perspective is also dependent on circumstance.  What is happening "out there" effects what can go on "in here".  Mood shapes perspective in sometimes alarming ways.  

...what we see is what we are.

-Ernst Haas

   So I suppose we come back to the Rumi quotation I began with.  What I see, my ability to see the unseen, is totally dependent on who I am at that moment in time.  Tomorrow I will see something totally different and that is a wonderful thing.  That's why I can go back day after day to the pond, even stand in the exact same place, and see a whole different reality.  That is the essence of seeing for me, to bring new eyes and an open and receptive heart to the experience each time...

4 comments:

Maryse said...

I just wanted to let you know that this series on abstract photography is amazing. It's speaking straight to my heart. Thanks!!

Patricia Turner said...

Thank you! I am amazed myself how the exploration of photographic abstraction can open up such wonderful new possibilities for contemplative thought.

Anonymous said...

Patricia, I agree with Maryse. Your pond series is speaking straight to my heart too. Your photography also speaks volumes...

Patricia Turner said...

Thank you! I hope you both clicked on the image to enlarge it. My "seescapes" are hard to post on the blog because of their elongated format but I love them. On December 19th I will post my "good crop" of images of the pond to date...the first six months.