PHOTO MEDITATION

A few weeks ago I read this article on the flickr Blog about Jose Vazquez. He takes the most amazing photos with his cell phone. The same cell phone that I have. I completely related to his story of how he went from DSLR to iPhone. He's just an average guy who just wanted to take good pictures. Simple. And his images are beautiful. I've noticed that I use my fancy pants camera less and less these days. One reason is because I just haven't been able to take the kind of picture I want and edit in any way. I don't have a really good editing tool on my computer and my computer is too old and clunky to add an editing program. I find that it's too much work to take a picture that I don't need to edit or I spend so much time setting it up that I miss the moment. The moment is the real reason I started taking pictures in the first place. But even though I've been relying on my iPhone camera lately, I feel like my pictures have lacked something. Because I'm not used to having editing tools, I forget to edit things before I post. I just got sloppy, unmindful. Since reading that article, I've become more mindful. It's no longer enough that I take the time to stop and take the picture. Now I'm taking time to edit those pictures.

I'm pretty happy with the results. Some of these images make me feel like a photographer, which is usually a title I'll argue with you about. But it's also been a reminder to slow down and not rush ahead. It is a practice that is slowing creeping its way from the camera to my everyday life.