A Photographer’s Philosophy...

A Photographer’s Philosophy...

“Life is like a camera. Just focus on what is important. Capture the good times. Develop from the negatives. And if things don't turn out ... Take another shot.”

Pithy remarks they may be, but an invaluable way to think about and deal with life.

As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his novel, ‘Dead Eye Dick’...

“Watch Out for Life. I have caught life. I have come down with life. I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened quite suddenly. Light and sound poured in. Voices began to describe me and my surroundings. Nothing they said could be appealed. They said I was a boy named Rudolph Waltz, and that was that. They said the year was 1932, and that was that. They said I was in Midland City, Ohio, and that was that.

They never shut up. Year after year they piled detail upon detail. They do it still. You know what they say now? They say the year is 1982, and that I am fifty years old. Blah, Blah, Blah…”

Life does come at us, and staying present to life, to what is presenting, is the gift of photography. How do you pinpoint what to put your attention on within the myriad morass of things? Perhaps a clue is what you bring to life. The intention you have narrows the field and provides you with a choice. It has congruity and allows you to act with integrity in the decisive moment.

Joseph Campbell said, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

We all wish to be happy, fulfilled, and with a true sense of purpose. What gets in our way, and how do we evolve and break through? A relationship to life that is captured by what George Bernard Shaw writes, “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

And if we really only have “one shot” in this life? We might as well...

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain. Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again...”

~ Joseph Campbell