I find myself often in the same places making the same photographs. And sometimes I think to myself, “Am I really going to make these same photos? Again?” But the answer is almost always yes. Because isn't that what meditation is? The practice of coming to the same space, but taking away something new; the learning to see more clearly and listen more deeply and be more fully in the present. These photos are the grasping at something that can never be held, and yet making them brings me to where I need to be.
Found Things
I’ve come to realize that when I take my camera out with the intention to make a particular photograph, it’s almost never that image that ends up being my favorite. Not that those intentionally made photos aren’t fine, or pleasing, or in some cases even really, really good. It’s just that usually they aren’t imbued with quite as much meaning.
Instead it’s the photos that are made spontaneously that I end up being so fond of; the images of moments that tell the story, of things found along the way.
“All around me, the forest was alive, growing and shifting, and drawing up water from the soil, and putting on new growth, and letting go of its dead. It was so loud, so absolute. If I were ever to believe in a god, I would have found it right there. It was exquisite…
“That was the moment I realised how much I'd lost of myself. No, that's wrong: I'd already realised that, over and over again. I'd fought it and suffered it and mourned it. This was new. This was the moment I realised that it was necessary to get myself back again. This was the moment I realised that, as the mother of a young child, the world was never going to give me permission to be on my own, but that I needed it anyway.”
- Katherine May, from The Electricity of Every Living Thing