Intention and Intuition...

  There are two ways to go about gathering your images.  You can approach it with intention or allow your intuitive self to lead the way.  Both are legitimate ways to approach the photographic process.  The vast majority of my images are received the second way.  I don't question or direct except in a general way and whatever I am gifted as I go along is fine with me.

   But are there times when we actually go in search of specific images?  And how does that figure into the "go with the flow" mindset I most often advocate?  Good questions.

   I sometimes set up challenges for myself as I did when I created my Alphabet series on St. John and Monhegan Island.  I find that if you narrow your focus to look for one specific thing, like a color or a pattern, it allows you to hone your perceptual skills, which is always a good thing for the contemplative photographer.

   But mostly, my intention is simply to allow the landscape to invite me in and then to see what captures my imagination.  My "breadcrumb" walk is a way I can let my rational mind take a coffee break and let my intuitive nature kick in.  As I've said so many times on this blog, you will see what you need to see if you don't fixate on creating the "perfect" photograph.  Not even sure what that means but I've seen people by-pass a location because the light wasn't right or there was nothing of "interest" to see there.  How very wrong they are.  Makes one wonder what amazing things they've missed!

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Footnote:

Today is Father's Day so I'm adding a photograph of my father taken just a few months before he landed in Normandy for the allied invasion we now call D-Day.

D-Day has been in the news lately because this year marks the 70th anniversary of the invasion.   I visited the Normandy coast two years ago to see where my father landed.  It was one of the most moving experiences of my life.  You can read a post I did about the day here.

I am so proud of what my father did, what all the soldiers sacrificed for our freedom.  My father made it through the war physically but I believe he carried the emotional scars of the conflict for the rest of his life which is the often unspoken of collateral damage of any war.