Last night I tried to capture the moon. So close I could see
its crevices. So close it looked like a perfect marble. Tried to freeze its beauty
into my little phone lens to cherish it. Remember it. But it was not going to
let me. I took several pictures. Holding its image in my head trying to
replicate what I saw in my head through my little lens but I could not. Instead
what I got were images of what my lens could take.
And then I realised I was being taught a lesson. Life
represents what we are capable of holding on to. Capable of seeing. Capable of
handling. It is the image of what we reflect and project. Therefore it is not
the same for any one of us because we are coming at it from very different
perspectives. None of us is in a position to judge the actions of others
because we have no idea how weak or strong their lens is. We have no idea whether
they have the ability to focus their lens. To enhance the images or not. We
have no idea whether they are seeing life through a lens that can’t focus
thereby causing them to see only blurred images.
I snapped picture after picture of the moon but the one image that
captivated me the most was the image of the light from the moon that seemed to
change every time I examined it. If I was religious I would say it represented Jesus
on the cross. If I was spiritual I would say it is the image of the light inside
of us all. If I was a scientist I would say it is the light being reflected
back from the flash on my camera. But if I embody all the interpretations of the
image I caught, I will understand it is all of these things because the image
is merely reflection of the perception of whomever is interpreting it.
Proving to me that I am a product of my imagination and so
are you. Limited or expanded by the lens that I have about whatever I am experiencing.
And the irony of it all is that the image I thought I was trying to capture
turned out not to be the image I was meant to capture. After taking
pictures of the moon, I was drawn to my laughing Buddha sitting laughing at me
in the vast moon. I took his picture and his image was as clear and as
beautiful as the day letting me know that sometimes the image we are trying to
capture is not the one we need.
Life is a series of stories, pictures, images, memories,
projections, reflections. It is meant to be lived. Experienced. Ridden. Explored.
Shared. Having the ability to alter our direction, perception, projection based
upon the lens we are seeing through.
Great post. I have so much to say here. As a spiritual person and a photgrpaher. Ive come to believe that we are souls and our experience is limited to the boundries of our human bodies capbilities. Our site, our smell, taste even our longevity is limited by our physical housing. There is more out there than we are able to capture with our human limitations.
ReplyDeleteAs an artist/photogrpaher I always thinking of my next capture. How to get the light right. how to get the focus right. how to convey a message even if it is a silly one. I'll shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot over and over and over tweaking and changing things. But at the end of the exercise i often find my best photos are the ones that were mistakes or the ones i put the littlest effort into. I call it cutting room floor magic. It was not the photo I envisoned, or the one i was trying to technically create but it was the one i was meant to take.
Wow, thanks for that. I agree totally. We can learn a lot about life from taking photographs. It's what we least expect to take shape that does and fulfills us more than what we thought originally would.
DeleteI love this! Such a beautiful reminder that we are in charge of how we see the world...and I've decided that perhaps I need a laughing budda to remind me too!
ReplyDeleteThank you Sister Friend. Life is always answering us . It's just sometimes we are looking through a lens that can't see the answer.
Delete