You are in front of the photograph

Last Updated on August 1, 2016 by Patrick

Everytime you go out and shoot, remember this: you are in front of the photograph. Whenever you are there, in the fields with your photo gear, you are not paying attention to yourself, so do it.

You could say now “I am paying attention to myself!” but you are not. You are only observing your body at a surface level but you are not paying attention to your self. Now, do you understand?

You are not a mile away from your “trophy shot”, you are right there, only you are not admiting it wholeheartedly. You may want to have a nice sunset, with crazy, breathtaking colours so you can fill your portfolio with, or a great mountain vista with beautiful wildflowers in full bloom, but maybe you are not. Where are you, actually? Right here, is the right answer.

Now is what you really are and where you really are, and when you realise that, you lose it, or you loose it and go with the flow, enter in the zero dimension so you can boast on your work, with yourself. Are you really paying attention to what you are? Or are you out there, in the fields acting like a “photographer”?

Don’t think, just act, whenever you have to, ’cause the environment begs you to transcend it. And then your music happens. The whole world unfolds to you, only it did this all the time, but you didn’t notice it. You were absent. Where were you when that one of a kind moment came to you and begged you to photograph it?

Just so you know, photography is not a tool for the pretenders of it, but only for those who see. It will reveal to you so much in your own light, striking a chord within you to make it happen.

Just let go of your strings and feel the world around you. Are all your senses alive?

If not, stop talking to yourself. Even a slight murmur that hides in plain sight can make you drift away from what really is.

Is that so hard to accept, let go of intellectual considerations and labels over what really is? Have you just listened to the sound of the wind blowing through the trees in a meadow?

Sometimes we forget of ourselves and go with the dreams that are not reality at all, inside our heads unfolding. There’s one thing to observe them and know where you really are, and another to colaborate with them and make them yourself, willingly.

Why are we still dreaming? Because it gives us pleasure.

If you are invited to conversation refuse it, if you are not ready. ;)

P.S.: This is a tribute I pay to Zack Arias and his talk called “Be Honest” at Creative Mornings. Also, watch his short film “Transform”! ;)