Mindful photography

Part 5 develops a theme that I started to explore in Assignment 4, that of the concept of mindfullness in photography:

“Whatever it is, begin to notice how where you are influences you”

And

“in the moment is where good photographs are often found”.

Harding Pitman clearly identified with what was happening in the would around him, the sprawl of LA Style urban paraphanalia acrcross the world making places less uniquem characterful and more ‘western normalised’ over time.  https://www.lensculture.com/articles/robert-harding-pittman-anonymization-the-global-proliferation-of-urban-sprawl

I’m realising that successful photography must be woven into the very life we lead, not just to be a passive, detached activity like Sontag warns of in Plato’s Cave, to “help people to take possession of a space in which they are insecure” (Sontag, 1977. P.9) speaking of tourists that use the camera to pry into the cultures of others while being safely protected from it by the lens they peer through.

Instead, photography with personal meaning is dependent upon living mindfully, fully in the present, so that we are receptive to:

• What is happening around us right now and;
• How we feel about it.

The photograph is a combination of these two things – the awareness and the personal artistic response.

As we consider this concept more fully, is becomes harder to separate out many of the basic tenets of, say, Eastern Buddhism from practicing any art.  Perhaps that is why religion has inspired so much art through the ages: Tibetan Thankga Paintings and Mandalas, Christian frescoes, Greek statues of deities and American totem poles amongst them.  They are artistic responses to a spiritual belief, rooted in, and inspired by, a connectedness to the world around thrm.

This opens the door to the practice and study of photography being part of a personal spiritual journey and not merely an academic pursuit, developing a deeper awareness of the world around us and our place within it.

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