Another lovely and resonant bit of writing and set of images, Michela. I really enjoyed this one. The video of images required me to center myself in the calm attention of seeing. It was so obvious that you spent time in that place, making images of a great diversity of compositions. I didn't want it to end.
In addition, I very much identify with your call to Embrace the Process. It's a mindstate that I've employed to enjoy photography and so many other activities such as travel and work. The product or outcome lasts but a moment, but the process can be virtually forever. And that's an interesting space to reside.
Thanks Matt, I appreciate your thoughts. I haven’t yet got to the point of edit down the set of images, hence sharing the exploration. Hearing you talk about the calm attention of seeing is interesting. It’s certainly something I experience making images, but I confess that I hadn’t thought about whether or how this could be conveyed…
It is indeed an interesting space to reside, and I think for many of us it has become increasingly important in recent years as a counterbalance to increasing uncertainty.
Thank you, Michaela for sharing your deepening of sense of place through inquiry with us. Your video brings me to a place behind my lens seeing and watching the prisms of light dancing.
I feel like kinship with your process, somewhat reassured and validated, and the way I so easily melt into place and become captivated through my lens. Resonance…and why do I want to add unparalleled resonance. Bewitched rings true as well.
Perhaps it is the eliminating clutter from my experience, for normally I am quite (read very) divergent that compels me so.
Have you read the book Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer? It is a gem and her first book before her more common ‘braiding sweet grass’ book. I can recommend them both.
Hello Pippa. I’m happy that you are able to relate to this - melt into place is a great way to put it. I do think that it’s invaluable to be able to mentally step aside from things for even a short time.
Yes, I bought Robin’s book after moving here and enjoyed her insights. Needless to say my favourite chapter is The Red Sneaker! I now have a couple of guides to help me learn more - I don’t think I had anticipated such variety.
I hope you find a way to share that you are comfortable with. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this beauty Michela. I’ve been out for an early morning walk and the river, the swans, an egret and so on made my heart soar. The town where I live straddles the river Suir just at the head of the tide, which gives an extra dimension to this great body of water, ever changing, always in flow.
You’re very welcome Margaret. It’s lovely to hear you use those words - make my hear soar - as that’s exactly how I feel in that moment of noticing. There’s something magical about light reflecting back off water, the constant movement, the sound, all of which bewitch. Perhaps there’s a sense too of it washing away some of the accumulations that we gather and carry with us?
I smiled at your mention of what we carry with us as I’m currently preparing to leave for the Camino on Tuesday - lots of decisions on what to do without, being real about what we can carry. It’s a good exercise.
Beautiful Michela. I wondered how you got the images, now I know - I’m tempted to buy a macro lens for my old Canon 6D, also about 12 years old! I’ve always loved photography but ditched the camera some years back for the ease and immediacy of my phone but I did lose something. I guess I look with my eyes mostly now and try to capture them in words. But images always lend something special to writing I think, you’ve proved the point here. Sublime work ☺️
Thanks Lynne, these lenses certainly open up a new way of seeing. The only thing I would say is that I do now need to think about whether to change the 6D, as for low level work the fixed LCD screen does make things awkward. I’ve got so used to the flip up screen on my Sony RX100 that I miss this; I have to think about the weight too - and that’s something you’ll certainly notice going back to it. It’s perhaps something to bear in mind before you go shopping!
Lovely images Michela, small scenes that have so much mood and feeling contained within them. I love this type of photography although I don't do it often enough.
The words by Richard Skelton are so true, the more we experience of the natural world the more we know and the more nature becomes part of us. I think photography is a great enabler in this respect and your images are a good example of real connection.
Hello Gill, and thank you; I’m glad the feeling carries. I think too that perhaps we come to realise how much we don’t know… but yes, I’ll forever be grateful that teenage discomfort made me volunteer to take family photos - looking through that little frame continues to be a revelation.
Hello Lee, it’s good to hear from you. Sometimes it makes me remember looking down a kaleidoscope as a child, with each turn something different appears. If you’re comfortable sharing, is it the images you make or something about the feeling that compels you to continue? I’m still not sure I’ve found the words to express it.
Hi Michela, I'm comfortable sharing thou I'm not sure I can add anything to the conversation. I love being out in the wilds and although I'm mainly into landscapes I always get drawn to the smaller things 'down there'. The close up, abstracting and redefining what is real/reality but also the total freedom from everything else in my mind. I know that's cliche but time does stand still and I forget everything else. I get hooked on the light, and we have a lot of it where I live, where it is and what it is showing me.
You ask "is it the images you make or something about the feeling that compels you to continue" - It is both. I love the making and all that involves but I also find seeing them on my computer screen gives me great joy. It's there I see what I didn't see in the making. Sometimes the slight movement at f2.8 to give me a new focal point I didn't expect, or an insect I didn't see but in general it's the effect of the bokeh on the image that gives me a feeling of otherness and new worlds and I love that.
I'm sorry I can't explain it any better, I don't seem to have the right words but it comes down to feelings of awe at the complexities of the minute and how we with our cameras can abstract, allude to, spotlight and create so much from things most others walk over and past.
Hi Lee, you have indeed added to the conversation and eloquently so, thank you. There is I think a fluency of expression that inevitably falls from this degree of engagement, at times unconsciously. There is plenty here that resonates and is beautifully put: ‘…abstracting and redefining what is real/reality…’, your sense of getting lost in time and place, and the acuity of sensation and vision that it can bring ‘…feelings of awe at the complexities of the minute and how we with our cameras can abstract, allude to, spotlight and create so much from things most others walk over and past.’ Wonderful!
Thank you Michela, I was very doubtful about replying as you write with such thoughtful grace. I do not have the expansive vocabulary you use but felt I would learn something also by trying to put my thoughts/feelings into words. It has been a lovely interlude.
It has Lee, thank you for being part of it. Writing is a valuable way of reflecting on what we do; do more and it becomes a little easier. If the idea appeals or you are curious, write notes for yourself, keep them and see if they build and if you enjoy it. It’s then your choice to share or not. I hope you have a good week.
Another lovely and resonant bit of writing and set of images, Michela. I really enjoyed this one. The video of images required me to center myself in the calm attention of seeing. It was so obvious that you spent time in that place, making images of a great diversity of compositions. I didn't want it to end.
In addition, I very much identify with your call to Embrace the Process. It's a mindstate that I've employed to enjoy photography and so many other activities such as travel and work. The product or outcome lasts but a moment, but the process can be virtually forever. And that's an interesting space to reside.
Thanks Matt, I appreciate your thoughts. I haven’t yet got to the point of edit down the set of images, hence sharing the exploration. Hearing you talk about the calm attention of seeing is interesting. It’s certainly something I experience making images, but I confess that I hadn’t thought about whether or how this could be conveyed…
It is indeed an interesting space to reside, and I think for many of us it has become increasingly important in recent years as a counterbalance to increasing uncertainty.
Thank you, Michaela for sharing your deepening of sense of place through inquiry with us. Your video brings me to a place behind my lens seeing and watching the prisms of light dancing.
I feel like kinship with your process, somewhat reassured and validated, and the way I so easily melt into place and become captivated through my lens. Resonance…and why do I want to add unparalleled resonance. Bewitched rings true as well.
Perhaps it is the eliminating clutter from my experience, for normally I am quite (read very) divergent that compels me so.
Have you read the book Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer? It is a gem and her first book before her more common ‘braiding sweet grass’ book. I can recommend them both.
Thank you!
I fell ready to share and will investigate how…
Hello Pippa. I’m happy that you are able to relate to this - melt into place is a great way to put it. I do think that it’s invaluable to be able to mentally step aside from things for even a short time.
Yes, I bought Robin’s book after moving here and enjoyed her insights. Needless to say my favourite chapter is The Red Sneaker! I now have a couple of guides to help me learn more - I don’t think I had anticipated such variety.
I hope you find a way to share that you are comfortable with. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this beauty Michela. I’ve been out for an early morning walk and the river, the swans, an egret and so on made my heart soar. The town where I live straddles the river Suir just at the head of the tide, which gives an extra dimension to this great body of water, ever changing, always in flow.
You’re very welcome Margaret. It’s lovely to hear you use those words - make my hear soar - as that’s exactly how I feel in that moment of noticing. There’s something magical about light reflecting back off water, the constant movement, the sound, all of which bewitch. Perhaps there’s a sense too of it washing away some of the accumulations that we gather and carry with us?
I smiled at your mention of what we carry with us as I’m currently preparing to leave for the Camino on Tuesday - lots of decisions on what to do without, being real about what we can carry. It’s a good exercise.
Beautiful Michela. I wondered how you got the images, now I know - I’m tempted to buy a macro lens for my old Canon 6D, also about 12 years old! I’ve always loved photography but ditched the camera some years back for the ease and immediacy of my phone but I did lose something. I guess I look with my eyes mostly now and try to capture them in words. But images always lend something special to writing I think, you’ve proved the point here. Sublime work ☺️
Thanks Lynne, these lenses certainly open up a new way of seeing. The only thing I would say is that I do now need to think about whether to change the 6D, as for low level work the fixed LCD screen does make things awkward. I’ve got so used to the flip up screen on my Sony RX100 that I miss this; I have to think about the weight too - and that’s something you’ll certainly notice going back to it. It’s perhaps something to bear in mind before you go shopping!
Great images. An essay in mindfulness almost.
Thank you for finding the time to read this. Every little escape has benefit.
Lovely images Michela, small scenes that have so much mood and feeling contained within them. I love this type of photography although I don't do it often enough.
The words by Richard Skelton are so true, the more we experience of the natural world the more we know and the more nature becomes part of us. I think photography is a great enabler in this respect and your images are a good example of real connection.
Hello Gill, and thank you; I’m glad the feeling carries. I think too that perhaps we come to realise how much we don’t know… but yes, I’ll forever be grateful that teenage discomfort made me volunteer to take family photos - looking through that little frame continues to be a revelation.
Lovely video, my friends used to think I was nuts to take images like these but I still kept taking them and still do and love them to bits.
Hello Lee, it’s good to hear from you. Sometimes it makes me remember looking down a kaleidoscope as a child, with each turn something different appears. If you’re comfortable sharing, is it the images you make or something about the feeling that compels you to continue? I’m still not sure I’ve found the words to express it.
Hi Michela, I'm comfortable sharing thou I'm not sure I can add anything to the conversation. I love being out in the wilds and although I'm mainly into landscapes I always get drawn to the smaller things 'down there'. The close up, abstracting and redefining what is real/reality but also the total freedom from everything else in my mind. I know that's cliche but time does stand still and I forget everything else. I get hooked on the light, and we have a lot of it where I live, where it is and what it is showing me.
You ask "is it the images you make or something about the feeling that compels you to continue" - It is both. I love the making and all that involves but I also find seeing them on my computer screen gives me great joy. It's there I see what I didn't see in the making. Sometimes the slight movement at f2.8 to give me a new focal point I didn't expect, or an insect I didn't see but in general it's the effect of the bokeh on the image that gives me a feeling of otherness and new worlds and I love that.
I'm sorry I can't explain it any better, I don't seem to have the right words but it comes down to feelings of awe at the complexities of the minute and how we with our cameras can abstract, allude to, spotlight and create so much from things most others walk over and past.
Hi Lee, you have indeed added to the conversation and eloquently so, thank you. There is I think a fluency of expression that inevitably falls from this degree of engagement, at times unconsciously. There is plenty here that resonates and is beautifully put: ‘…abstracting and redefining what is real/reality…’, your sense of getting lost in time and place, and the acuity of sensation and vision that it can bring ‘…feelings of awe at the complexities of the minute and how we with our cameras can abstract, allude to, spotlight and create so much from things most others walk over and past.’ Wonderful!
Thank you Michela, I was very doubtful about replying as you write with such thoughtful grace. I do not have the expansive vocabulary you use but felt I would learn something also by trying to put my thoughts/feelings into words. It has been a lovely interlude.
It has Lee, thank you for being part of it. Writing is a valuable way of reflecting on what we do; do more and it becomes a little easier. If the idea appeals or you are curious, write notes for yourself, keep them and see if they build and if you enjoy it. It’s then your choice to share or not. I hope you have a good week.