-from my day planner that is telling me I am or will be late for blood work. :)
Specs: shot in manual mode; 1/250; f8; ISO 100
Specs are not spectacular
You probably do not care how I shot this do you? My desire to put specs down is me compensating ego for its effort. It wants me to sound professional. It wants others and myself to see me as something special because I carry a big camera around with some big glass on it, when I am nothing more than a person who likes to take pictures. It is often ego that gets me to pick up my camera, to plop myself down somewhere and to set the mode, choose a lens, frig with the dials and ISO and white balance.
Ego often tells me how I must shoot if I am to maintain this "image" or this idea of myself as a photographer. I do not feel anything like a photographer unless I shoot in manual mode ( sometimes aperture priority) but what does a photographer actually feel like anyway. lol. It is all image...until I begin shooting, that is.
Ego is not the One that takes the picture
Then something else takes over. I can't see well so I actually can't see what I shot...I can set up the composition, use the right technique at times and "luck in" but I am not taking the picture...not really. I get absorbed right into the lens it seems and my very limited eye sight and photographic skill is replaced by something I cannot even begin to understand or describe. Ego slips away so the world, in all its contrasting beauty, can slip into my camera to be stilled. I just push the shutter release. My willingness to Be there, does the rest.
Far, far from perfect or professional
I may shoot over 100 frames in one sitting of anything and everything around me...doesn't matter what. I will usually delete about 15-20 % because they are absolutely horrid! (And for me to delete a pic means they are horrid because I have hope I can restore almost every one of "my babies" with the magic of post processing.) I take the rest to light room for better viewing...the only time I can actually see what I shot clearly is on full screen. Then I do what I learned to do to develop. It is a labor of love.
When done, ego may slip back in to judge my work with a very critical eye. I manage to supersede that with a "feeling" I get when I look at a particular pic. Of all the 100 pics I shot, there may be 2-3 that speak to me, like this one did (and it required little editing). It was a pic meant to be taken and meant to be shared.
I don't know why I like it, or the other 3% of my pics that I feel called to...but I know I do. My eyes are drawn to it...I sense the light in it, almost feel it...almost see the movement towards the space in 2/3 of the frame. It pulls me in. It may not do that for anyone else at all lol...I don't know; it doesn't matter. I just know it was a moment meant to be captured and someone, just me maybe, is meant to be pulled into it.
I feel warm and grateful when I look at this pic with all its imperfections. Grateful for capturing a moment that touched me so; for being reminded how beautiful, in all its contrast, the world is and for knowing I am a witness to it and a part of it. I am grateful for the reminder in every such pic I get that This moment is all there is...That reminder creates a peace in me. ...a peace which surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7 NKJV)
Hmmm! So ego deserves a little gratitude too for getting me there even if it was for its own twisted reasons. :) So I put my specs up and pretend to be something I am not.
That is much more than you needed to read, I am sure.
About the story of the little crocus that found itself far away from the crop? Well I think I see a children's story in the making. You will have to read more about it then. :)
All is well.
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