I like this photo, though I could understand why a lot of other people might not. My own favourites of my pictures are often the ones which other people don't greatly warm to. This is the back of an old house in Clyde. I like the hopefulness of the ridiculously red poppies, and the signs of long age in the cracks and blotches of the wall.
Beauty is everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. I fail to see it because, in order to survive in the maelstrom of sensory input which perpetually surrounds me, my mind has, over the years, produced little shortcuts and interpretive programs to screen out all that is unnecessary. I walk around on autopilot most of the time, missing out on the ingenuity of the universe and the miraculous beauty which is just lying about, completely unperturbed about whether I notice it or not.
Which is why, for decades now, I have carried a camera around. Cameras are not very bright. They record what they are plonked in front of, nothing more, nothing less. If I want to take a picture which pleases me, I have to learn to see what is there, not what my brain tells me is there, which are two quite separate things. The camera teaches me to see. And to stop. And sometimes to try as hard as I can to let other people in on the secret of what is there.
Beauty is everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. I fail to see it because, in order to survive in the maelstrom of sensory input which perpetually surrounds me, my mind has, over the years, produced little shortcuts and interpretive programs to screen out all that is unnecessary. I walk around on autopilot most of the time, missing out on the ingenuity of the universe and the miraculous beauty which is just lying about, completely unperturbed about whether I notice it or not.
Which is why, for decades now, I have carried a camera around. Cameras are not very bright. They record what they are plonked in front of, nothing more, nothing less. If I want to take a picture which pleases me, I have to learn to see what is there, not what my brain tells me is there, which are two quite separate things. The camera teaches me to see. And to stop. And sometimes to try as hard as I can to let other people in on the secret of what is there.
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