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The Art of Seeing—Week 6

Quote of the day: “The camera always points both ways. In expressing your subject, you also express yourself.”—Freeman Patterson This week’s exercise was a simple “thinking sideways” activity. The assignment (from Photography and the Art of Seeing) was to lock yourself in the bathroom with your camera, a tripod, and a standard lens (I didn’t use a tripod). Give yourself 20 minutes to make 10 pictures. According to Patterson, the resulting photos, when he has given this exercise to students, have been hilarious and instructive. I found this a challenging activity.  Aside from making funny faces in the mirror or Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Letting go of the reins―entering Wordlessness

Quote of the day: “Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you . . . remember that the lives of others are not your business. They are their business. They are God’s business . . . even your own life is not your business. It also is God’s business. Leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought . . . unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy . . . What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Going Toward My Best Life

Quote of the day:  “To navigate the wild world, you need to move your basic perceptual and analytical thinking out of your head and into the whole inner space of your body.” —Martha Beck Finding Your Way in a Wild New World Getting out of my head and into my “inner space” is a daily discipline. Some days it’s easy but often it’s devilishly difficult. Old thoughts and old habits recur regularly. Often, I fool myself into thinking that I am operating and making choices from within, but it’s old programs and scripts that are driving me. That’s when books like Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

Blessings of the day

Quote of the day: “A sense of blessedness comes from a change of heart, not from more blessings.” —Mason Cooley Here’s my little bliss list for this week: Gracie the cat investigating my photography setup in the dining room – made me laugh out loud! A $3.99 bouquet of tulips from Trader Joe’s that has provided hours of photography entertainment and practice HandmadeMN Etsy team meeting on Sunday. I learned a lot and it was fun to see fellow artists face-to-face Seeing the sunrise three days in a row-aahhhh…beauty Feeling good and doing more aerobic exercise – fun! Friends and family Read more…

By Marilyn, ago

How photography changed how I experience life

Quote of the day:  “In the act of deeply seeing, we transcend the boundaries between the self and the otherness of the world, momentarily merging with the thing seen.” ~ Alex Grey I fell in love with photography a couple of years ago—madly, deeply and completely. What started as a desire to photograph my grandchildren with a new, easy-to-understand point-and-shoot camera, became, “Now that I finally understand what depth of field is, I can’t set the aperture on this camera. I wonder if I could take a short photography workshop to decide whether it would be worth it to invest Read more…

By Marilyn, ago