My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, coffee life, spirituality and the mystery of it all.
Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being. It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering the remarkable world around you.
Freeman Patterson
We are all so desperate to be understood, we forget to be understanding.
Beau Taplin
When shooting this image I needed to choose between exposing for the shadows or the highlights. I chose to expose for the highlights. By choosing to expose for the highlights, half the image is in the dark shadows, giving the image a feel of mystery. However, I was not expecting what I felt when seeing this image on my monitor. The shadows seemed to be the only thing I could focus on. It asks the questions: What is in the shadows?
Here’s one answer to that question. The arrow is pointing my heart towards the shadows. Within those shadows are life’s risks, the unknown, my doubts, fears, insecurities and my wounds.
For years I told myself, and believed, I was not good enough to be a photographer, or writer or whatever else I dreamed of pursuing. Always in those shadows were the desires and dreams to be more, a voice whispering in my soul.
We only venture into into the shadows when we listen to the inner voice, and with whatever courage and faith we have, discover what’s there. If you were to step into the shadows of this image you would find a recessed door to the back of a restaurant. For me the door symbolizes the opening to new opportunities, more doors.
Yes, walking into dark shadows can be frightening to me. It requires a risk and accepting all the many lessons to be learned. Lessons improve my craft, build confidence and encourage me to venture into even more shadows.
I just may have to go back and shoot this image to expose for the shadows. Could be another lesson. 🙂
We all have the dark, ignorant shadow inside us. I have worked endlessly to reveal it and heal it in me.
Anne Lamott
“The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.”
Christopher Morley
This is finals week at Colorado State University and scenes like this are not uncommon. I wonder if he is a) sleeping b) grateful it’s done, c) praying or d) all the above.
“It’s not in the content of experience that I’ll find happiness,
Russ Hudson
but in the quality of my attention and presence.”
And, next week are finals at Colorado State University.
“We have the intelligence to end racism and other isms,
Thomas Moore
and end war and domestic abuse,
but we’re convinced otherwise.”
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
Henry David Thoreau
“I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.”
Diane Arbus