A wonderful quote over at Exposure Compensation that gets to part of the mindfulness perspective:
"Don't take pictures, be taken by pictures."
Note that it is not, "get taken by pictures." That would change everything now wouldn't it? But the sentiment points us in a direction that can highlight a practice of mindfulness. We could choose to take "be taken" as perhaps already implying a separation from nature, from what is. But, the point is that we already live as if we were separate, and as such, we are indeed. We assume that separation, and that is the constant struggle of being human: alienation, anomie, integration, seeking wholeness. The point is that a truly mindful practice of photography does not open us up to "be taken by pictures," but rather to be taken, enter, be one with that moment. What we call picture is what happens afterwards if we work things so that we re-construct a slice of that moment (including everything that intersected it as we were present).
Still, appreciate this quote. It is chiastic, it turns the traditional vocabulary of "taking" pictures on its head. That is a bell of mindfulness, a perspective by incongruity that we need.
