Wow — a lot has happened in our world since my last blog post.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. The presidential debate took place. Covid-19 has invaded the White House, its advisors, and top supporters. President Trump is in the hospital. And all of this in just the past three weeks, when we were already struggling to keep our noses above 2020’s turbulent water line.
It seems we have no anchor right now. Nothing to pin our focus on and be sure it won’t move — at least externally. Perhaps this is why the timing of this week’s post feels just right.
I promised in my first New Perspectives piece about widening my lens that a second installment would be coming up to share some additional experimental images that I made last month at Smith Mountain Lake in western Virginia. So here you go!
Embracing the Blur
The wellspring of new perspectives images really started on my solo photography retreat to Longwood Gardens this summer (crystalized in the tree video I shared in that post). Holed up alone in my hotel room when I wasn’t shooting, I immersed myself in Freeman Patterson’s teachings, which I discovered to be in close alignment with my mindfulness work.
Whether it’s through the camera lens, meditation, or other mindfulness practices, the journey is about deepening the complexity of my “seeing” capacity.
Mindfulness meditation trains our mental capacities of attention and awareness. We use different techniques to practice specific types of focus and we use other techniques to hone our awareness skills. We need both capacities to live life skillfully.
Macro photography — my “usual” style — is the epitome of focused attention practice. You chose one tiny focal point, use a tripod, and wait for the breeze to die down to capture your image. Absolute stillness in the photographer’s mind, body, and external environment is required.
But the breeze — just like life — doesn’t always cooperate. This year feels like one big hurricane, doesn’t it?
So instead of resisting chaos and grasping for stillness, I played around with embracing uncertainty and inviting motion into the game. I experimented with not only widening the lens, but also swishing it it across the scene.
New Ways of Seeing
Let’s start with the red, white, and blue picture above. What do you think that is? To me it looks like our flag all jumbled up, which I feel reflects the state of our country right now.
Beneath the blur, the real subjects underlying this image are a blue kayak and a red kayak stacked on a dock, shot from my perch on a paddle boat floating on the lake.
Look what happened when I turned my camera just 90 degrees in another direction, away from the dock and toward the shore. Underlying this picture are smooth waters at the bottom, calming green from a grassy slope, with a hint of pink sunrise reflected at the water line.
What do you feel at the cellular level when you look at it?
This next image was captured a little later that morning at the same field where I shot my spider web meditations earlier this summer. Do you feel the same flush of calm that I do when you rest your attention on this picture?
And how does your felt experience shift when you redirect your gaze to the picture below? Again, a simple 90 degree rotation of my perspective changed the light, changed the color (goldenrod painted those streaks of yellow), changed the perceived reality.
Maybe your thinking brain is telling you, “I’m not an abstract art sort of person.” See what it feels like to drop the thinking and just sense in to your body’s response to the image.
Personally, I found this exercise — both the process and the outcomes — transformative and empowering.
If the blur is too much for you…
Maybe it’s just too hard to relax into the blur, to see beyond the daily details. We’re all doing the best we can to navigate. Be kind to yourself, treat yourself the way you would treat a loved one, remind yourself that you are not alone. In other words, practice self-compassion (a trainable skill itself).
So here’s a closing piece of attention candy, a clearer focal point, along with some inspiration to hang on tight while we ride out this roller coaster. Remember — even the long rides are temporary.
I’d love to hear what you think of my abstract experiments! Leave a comment to share your thoughts, picture preferences, or anything else that bubbled up for you here. Thanks for your attention!
If training your attention and awareness skills sounds intriguing, or if you’d like to reboot your existing practice, or if you could just use some post-election grounding, my next 15-Day Meditation Refresh Program starts on Monday, November 9th. Learn more here.
