The camera as teacher

The Condos. Twin Lakes, Colorado, 2012

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

–Dorothea Lange (1895-1965)

And so it is…When you are on dawn or sunset patrol with your camera, or when you are on the street watching for your own personal “decisive moments”, you can feel your senses come alive as you take the time to really look intimately at the world as if for the first time. You start noticing the subtly changing hues and shadows upon the land/cityscape…your eye moves in to sample smaller–perhaps more abstract–parts of the whole…you turn this way, that way, your eye moves to the sky, to the earth, to the building parapets, to the sewer grates, to the opposite horizon or down the alley to be sure nothing of interest is missed behind you…and, strangely perhaps, you even grow more attuned to the temperature, the humidity, and the scents hanging in the air (even if those are things today’s cameras cannot yet capture).

Yes, when the light  and shooting conditions are right, you can really feel yourself slip into a mental state that is not unlike meditation. You are in the zone, as they say.

Yes, as Dorothea Lange so aptly pointed out, the camera does indeed teach you to see…and to be in the present moment…and to focus your creative mind.