The A,B,C's of Contemplative Photography - I

I is for Introspection (and also for Image and Imagination and Icon of Experience, and Imbue and Impart, and Interior Landscape, and Illuminate, and Inspire, and Intimate, and...)

  "the examination or observation of one's

own mental and emotional processes"

   I think this is one of the primary ways contemplative photographers differ from other photographers.  It is not so much about the image as object or artifact as it is about image as idea.  The image represents as much the interior landscape as it does the exterior and observable one.

   Why we photograph what we do is part of this introspection.  Why this and not that?  What draws our attention and what can we learn about ourselves through that process of attraction?  So many times, when I am in company, people will ask me, "Why are you photographing that?"  Sometimes I know but often it is a somewhat unconscious attraction that I need to think about.

   Thinking about your images, sometimes long after they are made, is an essential process for the contemplative photographer.  After all, it is inherent in the title..."contemplative" photographer!  Illuminating the inner world through our camera work is part and parcel of what it means to practice our art.