When I say magic here I don’t mean the esoteric or the mythical but the mundane and the quotidian. In the turn of a day we can make meaning through each moment or glance, no matter how simple or ordinary. It is the way we perceive it, and then the response. Our cameras, I have learned, can take us even closer.
I’ve been working as a freelance documentary photographer for almost eight years now. Back when I started I had grand plans for my imagery and much ambition. What I have found over time however is that the ambition has softened and photography has become more a way of being than anything to do with the camera or even the images I take. It has become simpler, and on a personal level, more profound.
Photography, instead, has become a more meditative practice for me, to help frame and understand the changing context around me and giving me a lens on which to view the landscape of my life. It teaches me, over and over, to search for the beauty in the moment, right in front of me. In doing so it requires my full attention and presence. In full presence, like with any meditative practice, time expands and the moment can take on a quality of absorption, joy and deep satisfaction. In showing up to that moment, life slows down and, in a magical way, expands. It is a beautiful thing.
Less and less do I use a fancy camera for this but instead the one in my pocket. On days when I am feeling out of sorts or out of synch it is my phone- almost ironically- which can bring me back to this presence. I take out the camera and from the position from which I stand, I search for the beauty and the image. Even on grey days there is always something of note.
Yet here’s the real trick- before I take the image, I pause, really look and take time to notice. I pay attention to the direction in which the light is coming from and what textures which are revealing themselves. I seek out the shadow and the contrast. Then I examine the form, looking for the space between things as a way to navigate the frame. As another layer, I also seek out the colour, tone and variance of the scene, and then the breath and depth of it. So, in just a few moments I am brought back to the richness, the complexity and the extraordinariness in front of me. So often we take this for granted, but when we really notice, life has a way of revealing its mystery to us, moment by moment, frame by frame. Sometimes I take the photo, and sometimes not. What I have learned is that the photo is just a point in the process and it is really the quality of my presence and the noticing that counts.
It all serves a reminder of this: that the tools we need to bring us back to ourselves and the magic which surrounds us are closer than we may think. They are our bodies and our breath, they are our senses and our insight, and sometimes they can even be the phones in our pockets.
So next time you reach for your phone, I recommend that you take a few breaths, pause, notice what is around you, take in how the light is behaving, or the textures you are in contact with. Relate yourself to the space around you, seek out the colour and contrast. And then see what really happens when you pause. You will find that there is an art to noticing. You may find that time takes on an added quality and richness, and, as a bonus, you may even have a beautiful image to boot. Or perhaps the image may just be an ordinary one, either way, you will know that the taking of it was extraordinary, and that is what counts; that’s the magic.
