(DEP 12/08)
How does looking through a lens and tapping a button turn into emotion, intrigue, inspiration and the telling of story after story? I love photography for this reason. When you walk around can you spot the stories hidden behind the glances of your day? The truth is, when you start to look, you notice the details of everything, and everything has something worth holding on to. There is a certain look on the soft face of a child, there is a barn set to the backdrop of fields of grain, there is a stark white, white snow divided by a black road weaving through the middle of nowhere, there is a reflection caught in a glass window, there is a cat on a bookshelf sitting tall with dull red, blue and brown bindings lined underneath, and there are the curves in a raging sea.
A picture is to your left even now as you sit and read this. Sounds can be heard for those who know how to listen to a photograph. And even smells drift off the page if you are really connected to what you see.
I love taking pictures and I am not even sure why. I guess there is something to reach for that goes beyond just the image taken. To be honest, it is not just a re-creation of the real thing, it almost propels me past the real thing as it touches on something beyond what just sat in front of me. Life is so fast moving. We don't sit long enough to feel, taste, see or smell what is all around us. We race past it and therefore miss the beauty of the simplest sight. We don't notice detail, we ignore color, we listen to loud music and never listen to creation. We miss miracles.
Planet Earth has become a favorite pastime. I marvel at what they have been able to capture on film. The best of the best in the world of photography set out to remind us to stop and to take us back to the beauty that is all around us. Their equipment is top of the line, which makes this possible in the first place. But the truth is, passion has motivated the makers of this series. They have been obedient to discover what is hidden. They have gone to the remotest place and brought back their findings to us in our living rooms. They decided it was the waiting the made it such a prize. And the waiting for some shots took days, months and even years. But to them, it was worth it.
Photography stops us for a moment. We can actually look at something that otherwise is so fleeting that it is often missed in the movement of life. We can sit long enough in front of something still and see the colors and see the shape and see the detail. It is a true gift.
So slow down, really slow down. Look around and find something worth staring at. Be comfortable with a different sort of accomplishment. And teach your children to do the same. We are dissolving under the race we run that has no finish line.
