Moments are frozen instants in the flow of time. Our life is about moments. Most art, but especially photography, is about capturing moments.
Flow of time
Time is like a stream flowing around us. It goes from infinity to infinity as far as we can perceive. But we can’t stop it or dam it up. We can’t even jump in the stream and ride a moment forever. Instead, we must watch it flow by and hear the clock ticking.
Time itself may be virtually infinite, but our time is not. We have been alive a certain time, but we have no idea how long we have left. There may be many years left, or our time may be done tomorrow.
Many of us live our lives as if we have infinite time left. That is simpler and less troubling than acknowledging the impermanence of our existence. So, we become numb to the passing of time. We bury our self in our job or other responsibilities or diversions. Days flow into weeks into months into years and we barely realize it. Someday we look back and wonder where the time went.
All we can clearly perceive is the current moment we are living in. The past is a sequence of moments that are gone. The future is a potential sequence of moments we cannot yet see.
A characteristic of a lot of art, especially photography, is that it records moments. They may be beautiful moments, or touching ones, or poignant ones, or frightening ones. But the moment itself is the art.
Art portrays these moments so we can look at them from outside the time stream. It gives us a new perspective on the moment. Whether the art captures the moment as a 2-dimensional image to hang on our wall, or a 3-dimensional form, or a poem or story we can visit whenever we want, they re-create for us a moment or a scene we want to save.
One of the powerful aspects of our art is that it is concrete. That is, it is fixed, unchanging, staying as it was created. This plucks moments out of the stream of time and preserves them for us, beautiful and unchanging. A photograph is a frozen moment.
What we remember
Our memories are really a collection of remembered moments. Do you remember what you did at your job last month? Probably not, but you remember that time last month when your boss came to you and praised you on doing a great job on something.
Do you remember college? Or is your memory based on some great times, some miserable times, a time when a professor said something that opened a whole new world of thought for you?
In our lives and with our families we tend to remember events, certain happenings – in other words, moments. Everything else is just a blur.
Astounding moments are flowing by us all the time. Mostly, we don’t notice. Those moments are lost and can never be regained.
Mindfulness is a practice of being aware and “in the moment.” It attempts to let us forget the past and not worry about the future but instead be very aware of what is happening right now.
Being mindful is a good thing, but when you look up “mindfulness” it often gets co-opted by types of eastern mysticism. Ignore that. The concept is simple, even if the practice may be hard.
When I say we should be mindful I simply mean we should practice greater awareness of the world around us and the way we are responding to it. As artists this is especially important. There is beauty and interest almost everywhere. Fascinating moments are happening all the time wherever we are. Mindfulness is teaching our self to see them. We must notice moments.
This usually involves unplugging from our technology and stepping away from the fast pace of our lives for a bit. A walk is a great tool for me. Being outdoors and getting exercise helps me see more of what is going on. Of course, this only works if we put the phone in our pocket and take off the headphones, freeing our self from our tether to the machine.
But being there and seeing the moments are two different things. We must be open to the experience. Pause and marvel at small moments. At common, ordinary things around us that can become magical sometimes.
The way we live our moments is the way we live our lives.
By its nature, photography is about capturing moments. The shutter opens on a scene in the “real world” for a fixed slice of time. The sensor records what is happening during that time slice. What we get is not imagined or fake. We have captured a moment. If we are good, it is a worthwhile moment.
Of course, I can create fantasy art that is impossible or surreal. I enjoy doing that. But most photography is a relatively straight capture of a real scene.
The typical photograph is a portrait of a moment. It is not the moment itself, but an abstract image of it. We have plucked it out of the stream of time and set it aside for contemplation, to show other people what was there that they could have seen. Since there is such a rich flow of moments passing before us, one of the challenges is to develop the experience, the “eye”, to recognize a worthwhile moment as it is happening. In a sense, what Henri Cartier-Bresson called a “decisive moment”.
Shoot it when you see it. Painters may be able to hold a moment in their memory well enough to be able to sketch and paint it back at their studio. But photographers must react immediately. Capture it or lose it. The famous Jay Maisel so rightly said “Always shoot it now. It won’t be the same when you go back.“
Even in the realm of photography, there is the special case of the print. A print takes this fleeting moment and casts it in a permanent form onto a substrate like paper or canvas or metal.
The moment becomes a real object. It has weight and form and texture. This is important because by being an object of substance, we have a different relationship with it. An ephemeral moment has been transported to a physical object we can see and touch and hold.
Even more, it has permanence. Memories are unreliable things. They fade and change. A print holds the moment up for us to see for many years to come. We can come back to it and relive it at will. Maybe only to remind ourselves that great moments are happening all the time and we should be more mindful of them.
In computer speak, a print is read-only-memory. That is a technology that, once written, can never be altered. Once the print is printed, it is an unchangeable record of the artist’s intent at that moment. The digital file can be altered and a new, modified print can be created, but the original print is fixed for its lifetime.
A print celebrates a moment that is worth keeping among the continuous flow of time.
Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.
Be intensely aware of moments. They are our life. Each moment we have should be precious to us. Don’t let them drift away unnoticed.
As photographers, we should be on the lookout for the moments we want to record. To do this we must be very aware of the world around us, mindful, in other words.
We have the privilege of capturing moments and presenting them to people so they can marvel at the moments that have gone by. This is one of the things artists do. This is awesome.
Should we shoot what we are paid to do, or what we love, or what interests us? Yes, probably all of them. But perhaps the most important thing is to shoot what interests you.
Motivation to shoot
We are motivated by different things at different times. Everything from paying the bills to self-actualization are motivators. We must bend to the circumstances.
When a client is paying you to create a shot, we have to rise to the occasion. We give it our all, even if our heart is not in it. Chances are we are not in love with the product they want to sell. The executive’s head shot is probably not our idea of the pinnacle of creative artistry. And this wedding. Well, maybe we would rather not be here.
But if we receive money for it, we must give good value to the client and make them happy. Paying the bills is often a motivator.
It is often said that we should shoot what we love. I have probably said it. I agree in principle, but there are other considerations.
What we love may inspire us. But long term, we could trap ourselves. We can get burned out on a subject. We still love it, but at some point, it does not challenge us anymore. It is easy to get into a rut. Doing the same things over and over with little new thought. See it – shoot it.
This becomes a comfort zone trap. It becomes too easy and safe. We may believe our favorite subject is the most beautiful thing there is. But if we run out of things to say about it, our images get stale.
This happens sometimes with “experts” in a field. They become more interested in protecting their position as expert than they are about learning new approaches or even contradictory ideas. We can sort of build a mental fort around our thoughts to protect ourselves from being challenged.
I see this myself with 2 dispirit things I love to shoot: landscapes and stained glass. I live in Colorado. Rich sources of landscape opportunities are all around me. But as time goes on I find it harder to create something new with them. Similarly, I am drawn to beautiful stained-glass windows. I can’t help but shoot them. But I recognize when I am doing it that this is the same old record shot of a window. It is very hard to find much new to say about them.
I have come to believe the greater motivator is to shoot what interests us. This may not be what we think we love.
More and more I believe that our curiosity is a searchlight that will lead us to challenging and creative new work. I love a phrase from David duChemin: “Go in the direction your brain is already running.” This beautifully captures the idea that our interests and our curiosity is pulling, nudging, directing us forward to new things. We just have to follow. And marvel at how we got there.
He points out that this might take us far from what other people are doing. But that is great! It lets us play in exciting new areas that other photographers are not trampling all over, working to death. Our curiosity will lead us to areas that are uniquely our own vision.
Everyone is naturally curious as kids, but it seems to be squeezed out of us as we “adult”. But we can relearn. it. How can we practice being curious? Easy. Let go and don’t try to force it. Ask yourself questions.
Curiosity is our brain making connections between things and asking questions to learn more. The more sources of connections we have, the better that works. We must encourage the questions.
One way to learn about curiosity in practice is to be around a 4-year-old. They have questions about everything. Many of their questions are things we might wonder about but wouldn’t ask because we are too “mature”. That’s the advantage of the kid. They feel free to ask any question. Imitate that. Ask the questions, at least in our head.
And since curiosity is about our brain making connections, it helps to feed our head, Dabble in all sorts of different things. Get a little information on everything you encounter, even if you don’t think you will be interested in it. No telling where that path will take you or how that random bit of information may emerge later.
You know that Google makes an extensive dossier of you based on your searches (don’t use Google search). Be so eclectic that their algorithm gives up on you because it can’t pigeonhole you.
Creativity needs challenge. Without challenge, it will atrophy. Staying in a safe comfort zone does not challenge us. This is why I believe it is important to shoot what interests us. When we are shooting pictures, always be asking “What if…?”
Our interests are fluid. They shift and move to new ideas as we learn and think more. And if we accept the challenge to experiment with those ideas, we can see new things in even the common things around us.
Following our shifting interests keeps us fresh and challenges us with learning and adopting new viewpoints. It is based on our curiosity rather than a particular subject.
Always be curious. Always be asking questions. And give yourself permission to follow your curiosity. No one is stopping you except you. Follow your curiosity and shoot what interests you.
This is scheduled to come out New Year’s Eve (on the Western calendar). This is going to be mainly a new year’s greeting. I am going to ramble on non-photographic topics this time.
Reflection
It is just a date on a calendar, but there is something about a new year that makes us thoughtful. Maybe it is the act of having to take one calendar down and replace it with a nice new one – if you still use paper calendars. That seems to make it clear that an old year has ended and a new one is starting.
Whatever the reason, there seems something more solemn than the Times Square ball dropping. We think to the past and the future.
Looking back
Despite our social media profiles that show everyone constantly happy and successful, we know that is not true. It is the illusion we want to have everyone believe.
The reality is we are all human and share the human condition. We get sick. We have conflicts. People close to us move away or die. Some of us lost our jobs this year.
But, on the other hand, most people recover from illness, new jobs are found, new friends are made, babies are born. We see that life goes on.
Life is a churning mix of good and bad. Sometimes we are being tossed in the waves rather than surfing skillfully on top. But we rise. How we rise depends on our attitude.
Some ride these waves better than others, even though the problems are the same. Please let me suggest that one of the big differences is our faith. What is your faith centered in? How strong is it? A strong faith in God goes a long way toward helping us take a long view that things will work out for our good, because we know that right here, right now is not all we have to look forward to.
Looking forward
That new calendar you hang up is empty. Waiting to be filled with all of our activities. Over the course of the year, it will mark what we choose to do, where we spend our time, what we consider important.
Right now, it has the promise of a blank page. We can choose what to write. That seems to be what occupies our thoughts at this time.
Many of us make “New Year’s Resolutions.” Suggestions to ourselves of things we would like to do different the next year. I have stopped making New Year’s resolutions. A resolution has no weight of commitment. It is just saying some should do’s: I should lose weight, I should get more fit, I should go back to school and get a new career.
Let me suggest this is a good time to actually commit to a different path. If fitness is your problem, decide what kind of exercise is best for you, make a realistic plan – not “6-pack abs in 2 weeks”, and commit yourself to doing it. Start today. No excuses.
Whatever we choose to do requires determination. January 1st all the usual problems and demands start piling up. They fill our time and thoughts and quickly sweep away resolutions. Let your commitments stand strong. If you don’t make it happen, they will not get done.
The things we don’t do are often the things we regret most later in life.
Place of photography
Photography is very important to me. But it serves as a creative release I need. It is not the core of my life. I suspect it is the same for you.
If it is important but not the center of our world, we must look at it correctly.
We have a life to live that is not totally centered on photography. We must earn a living and probably support other people, we have family and friends who are very important to us, we take vacations, we learn, we take care of ourselves physically.
Life goes on. Photography is an important part of what I am, but not the center. I am much more than a photographer. I photograph when life lets me. After I take care of the important things.
Best wishes
I wish you sincere best wishes for the year ahead. I hope you will have clarity of purpose and alignment with your faith. Take care of yourself and others around you. And I hope you will shoot some amazing pictures!
Good general advice is that we should photograph subjects we love. I want to bend it some and suggest we love the one you’re with.
Love our subjects
It seems good advice to say we should concentrate on photographing subjects we love. Then we will feel a strong draw and affection for it. We will think more and look deeper into what it means and what it can be.
We see it all the time. Some photographers only shoot landscape, others only portraits. People focus exclusively on food photography or mini-figures or architecture. There are hundreds of specialties.
That’s great. I agree that if we have an affinity for a subject, we should photograph it. It will be fun and rewarding. But it can be limiting.
But what if your only true photographic love is reefs in Fiji, or volcanoes in Iceland, or hidden temples in Malaysia? Unless you are retired with fat investments, most of us would not have the opportunity to do that very often.
Have you painted yourself into a corner in that case? Do we have to resolve that there’s nothing for me to shoot here where I live? I must wait until I can go to my dream location. But when I get there someday, I will kill it.
For some reason I was reminded of the very old song by Stephen Stills, “Love the One You’re With“. Yes, I go back that far. I don’t remember hearing it recently, but this idea of shooting what you love must have triggered it.
The main theme of the song is “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”. That is so 1970’s. It is good advice for causal relationships with groups of friends, but terrible advice for couples. But no marriage counseling here.
Love the one you’re with
Yes, it is great to be able to photograph the subjects and themes you love. But we don’t always get to do that. I recommend adopting a more mindful attitude of being attuned to what is around you.
If you are so exclusive that you will only photograph certain subjects I suggest getting checked for obsessive/compulsive tendencies. You are passing by many joys of discovery that happen when you let your curiosity take you down unexpected paths. And being so selective means, you miss the practice that comes from taking the opportunity to explore how to photography other things. Anytime we use our camera to take a picture, we are practicing our craft.
Instead of waiting exclusively for the thing you love, fall in love with what you find. It is great photographic practice, it is great mindfulness exercise, it keeps you engaged where you are, and you might find new love interests.
Accepting the challenge of photographing things you did not know you were interested in requires re-orienting your mindset. It is that scary idea of practicing mindfulness.
Mindfulness used to have a negative connotation for me. I associated it with some of the ridiculous examples I see on the internet involving a deep spiritual philosophy, incense, yoga poses, chants, and, what seemed to me to be mind games. It is that for some.
But I already have a strong spiritual path, I don’t bend the way a 20-year-old yoga instructor does, and if I started changing mantras, I would burst out laughing at myself. Few of those things have much to do with photography, in my opinion.
Mindfulness in our art involves the mental discipline of staying aware of what is around us. Looking, being in tune with what is there, being receptive. And, going back to the original idea of this article, looking for and learning to appreciate the interest, even beauty, in what we find. Even to the extent of falling in love with the ordinary things around us.
Exercises like 52 Week Photo Challenges are popular. That is one reason there are so many of them. I know from experience that they are good learning experiences. They keep us trying new things and having to creatively find a solution for a word problem.
I don’t do these anymore, but mostly because am not competitive and because I find so many challenges around me all the time that I don’t want to distract myself. That’s just me. Don’t let me discourage you if you have not tried it.
If you are not going to do one of these scripted challenges, I encourage you to challenge yourself. Ignore your one great subject love. Go out wide open. Turn off the music and your phone. Walk around and look around. “Force” yourself to look more closely at what is there. Determine that you are going to shoot things you never photograph. See something and think “that is mildly interesting; how could I make it very interesting?” Discover that there are endless possibilities besides what you normally focus on.
it seems like I often come around to the idea of mindfulness in our photography. I guess it is one of my ongoing themes. Mindfulness seems to be joined to creativity. Mindfulness helps us discover interesting things. Creativity stimulates us to do something interesting with them.
Most of us are not limited by our knowledge or our equipment or our environment. We are limited by the boundaries we place on our imagination. The question is not “how did you do that?”. It is “how did you think of that?”
Self-limiting
Maybe it is harsh to say we limit ourselves. But I have come to believe it.
I have gotten a lot from a quote from my friend Cole Thompson:
Many photographers will see an image they admire and ask: how did you do that? They want to know the techniques used, thinking that once they know those, they could create that image.
The question they should be asking is: how did you think of that?
Do we tend to follow what other people do, or do we create our own path? I believe we are afraid because we are not confident in our own creativity. It is safer to imitate.
There are many excuses for our perceived limitations. One easy one is that my equipment is not good enough.
Photographers seem to lust for new equipment. If I had a medium format camera I could … That new super zoom lens would let me …
I understand. I have equipment lust like anyone. But on the other hand, I have come to believe that if you hand a Brownie box camera to a good artist, they will make good images. They will embrace the limitations and use them as part of the art.
This tells me that, in general, equipment is not the fundamental limitation. There may be specific situations that require certain technology, but artistry is independent of technology.
So, I don’t think I can use the excuse of not having good enough equipment. What I have is perfectly adequate to make art. I just must learn how.
Learning how brings up the excuse of not enough knowledge. I understand. I am a constant learner. Almost everyday beings a new video or article or book I consume to learn to be better. I have hundreds of hours of videos and a library of books. Photography is more closely aligned to technology than most other arts, and it is supported by huge amounts of training material.
But I also know this can become a crutch and an excuse. When will you get to the magic threshold of knowledge required to be an artist? Sometimes needing more study becomes an excuse for being afraid to go out and do it.
Again, I know. I’m talking to myself, too. I get caught up in this. Today I watched a presentation on photographic abstraction, including techniques for in-camera multiple exposure and intentional camera movement. It was educational and motivating. But I didn’t immediately go out and apply it. And if I was not an artist before seeing it, I still could not call myself one after it. Maybe the amount of raw knowledge is not the key. We do not become an artist by a certain amount of training or a degree or certificate.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong believer in learning. Our tools are complex. And I believe that the more examples and points of views we have seen gives us greater fluency with our art. But as an artist, the knowledge must be internalized, then re-expressed in our vision. If we are studying but not doing it, we are not making art.
I get stimulated and energized by travel. I am lucky in getting the opportunity to take a few trips a year. The places and things I see while traveling seem newer and more interesting than the stuff where I live.
But travel is a bonus, an extra stimulation. The reality is that I spend most of my time around home. I must discipline myself to see the ordinary things around me with fresh eyes.
Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like you can’t make any interesting images because you do not have the chance to travel to exotic locations. Great photo opportunities are everywhere if we learn to see them. This is the type of mindfulness I recommend. The ability to see the ordinary with fresh eyes.
I live in a relatively small town along the Colorado front range. But I seldom take a day to go into the mountains. Almost every day, though, I go out and walk a few miles, starting from my studio. I try to vary my routes, but there are only so many directions I can go.
This means I see the same areas frequently. Finding something interesting that I haven’t seen before or that looks fresh and different is a challenge. But it is a challenge I have accepted as a test of my creativity. I have been doing this for years and I can still find engaging things.
This may seem to have wandered far from the question of “how did you think of that?” My point is that our art is not limited by our equipment or our training or our environment. Our limitation is our imagination. Can we look at something that everybody sees all the time and see it different? Can we think something new?
That is a problem, but it is a good problem. If the limitation is in our head, we have some control of it and can fix it. Or at least make it better.
I believe an important step is reclaiming the curiosity we had as kids. Remember that curiosity you had, or your kids had? Why is the sky blue? What is the moon made of? In the olden days, was everything black and white?
Curiosity like this leads to asking “what if?” questions and to looking at the world different. We can begin to think of new ways to photograph, new ways to see things. The same thing we have always seen may be perceived in a new way. Answering the questions is less important than that we were able to ask them. The questions challenge us to look again and deeper.
So, maybe, to be a better photographer, I don’t need the latest equipment (bummer), or more training, or a trip to New Zealand. Maybe I just need to re-learn how to ask interesting questions. To be curious about everything. And to not be afraid to ask ourselves “what would happen if…?”
Try it. Be a kid. Follow your curiosity. Make mistakes and enjoy them. Don’t imitate other people. Create something no one else has ever seen.
As the great Jay Maisel said: If you want to make more interesting pictures, become a more interesting person.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer
©Ed Schlotzhauer