Not passing the passerby’s. Maybe that sounds confusing and I am a good source for confusion material. Remember that thing about the Inverse Square Law. Well, here we go again, another round. This round we are dealing with the head mostly and the heart is active but on vacation.  I was always interested in the things I didn’t pay attention to. I mean why do they not interest me. Why is there no connection that gets me hyped? If there is a connection of sorts, why do I not make a photo of it? If there’s a connection and I don’t make a photo, why do I even remember the moment? That’s the thing, remembering the moments NOT recorded.

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So I set out with the intent of finding the photos I pass by. I did this many times before but the way you get past hurdles, is not to get over them one time, but to get over them many times and then to recognize them before you have to get over them. I started thinking, shooter I said, what’s the reason you walked pass that photo and if in fact that was a photo, what was missing?

years ago, I taught vision by going to an area and making photos. I would do about 10 and from different points of view. I would take the class there and give them all the photos. Then set them free to find the photo on the print out on the street. This is easier said then done but, very worthwhile. Cultivating vision also means to be aware of what’s not the interest. Like in a garden, there are many beautiful plants growing but all around is weeds, grass etc. We need to WEED out the garden so that the flowers etc grow better.

That is the same as in making photos. We kinda weed out photos so that the photos we desire can bloom. This of course means an act of knowing what we are weeding out. Basically this is editing. So that’s the name they gave this.

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What if all the photos you don’t make are more important in some ways then the ones you do make. I don’t think it’s the value system working, I think it’s intentionally not paying attention. So I noticed a long time ago that I would walk past things, people etc and for a fraction of a second, glance at it and then continue on my journey. I get home and process and then sith to relax and let the images burn in my heart and mind. They will live there forever cause without them, I cease to exist.

All the sudden, some images pop into my mind and it’s of something I walked past and didn’t make a photo. Sometimes that image starts to burn and cause an itch in my butt. It gets to the point sometimes that I can’t erase the image at all.

So methinks that maybe, just maybe, these unborn photos are like lost messages that I didn’t get. Oh, I saw them but was to reluctant to make the image. Maybe these things are seemingly trite but to me, very intense. I want to understand my life as a photographer before I am not. I want to make the photos that mean something to me and never be that concerned by the thoughts of others that it shall effect me or detour me from the path I live with my cameras.

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We all have a responsibility to ourselves. We need to satisfy the craving of photographic creativity and continue our work. Ya know, there is a duty that we all have, wanted or not, That duty is to support photography and Mother Light the best way we can. We as shooters, for the most part work for other shooters. To deny that fact is to deny yourself the reciprocal energy that your photos may bring.

So perhaps what I am really writing about is that maybe we see the big picture for ourselves and we walk by the things we don’t pay attention to. This kind of stuff makes me nuts and it’s why Olivier and I made the Inspired Eye. What if one of the things or…. that we pass by is a shooter struggling to find his/her way with photography. Perhaps you stop and offer assistance and maybe you think that this means little to you but to the one you helped, it’s a mountain that gets knocked to a dust pile and leads the way to the an open mind and heart.

I’m rambling but not really.

Good Light my friends……………..end transmission……………………