Only after this was downloaded from my camera into iPhoto could I see the world in her eye. The photographer, the line of field and sky – the mirror of her eye holding it all.
I don’t think that we really look, most of the time. There is a meditation called gazing that I have practiced a number of times. Two people sit face-to-face and gaze into each others’ eyes for five or so minutes. There is the first nervousness, the twitchy, uncomfortable feeling of being seen, of being naked in a close-up way. Self-conscious giggles. At some point there may be a calm, or maybe not.
I am aware of how much of my life is scanning – a minimal taking-in of what I see. A surface tour. Not very often sinking into the depths, or awakening the peripheral. The visual sense is so predominant, and yet so often (for me at least) lacking in detail.
I think that is one of the reasons that I love the camera. It takes me in and let’s me stay. Gazing, rapt, voracious even. Framing, capturing, dancing with it – my landscape partners, my subjects.
How do you see?
: “When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.”