Observations that dive deep into life and come up with treasures for all

The old dies into the new,
the new dies into the old,
the moment unfolds
into death,
and death unfolds into life.

Let this New Year’s Moment
never pass,
and every moment will be new……Happy New Year, Ed

Posted under General Observations

I have been clicking away at wedding ceremonies for 17 years, never with flash, always trying to be out of the way, yet the camera does make a clicking sound. I never thought it would bother anyone. Well, it bothered me.

During my wedding ceremony (I talked about in the previous blog,) the room was small and the wedding photgrapher, my friend, was only about 15 feet away taking the pictures. As I surrendered to the vows, looking at my wife, speaking the words to her from my heart, we began to merge, two into one. My mind saw a gold ring and we were inside it saying our vows. I felt that we were in the center of the universe, which had fallen into a hush as we became one….except for the click, click, of the camera.

From my mind on the camera side I could feel the pull of objectification on our subjectivity. As we became one subjective experience, the camera’s presence was like a tether to my ego, not letting it go.

It was like someone watching you make love. It was like a child absorbed in his dance until the adult says “be careful” and snap, the spell is broken. It was like a teacher calling you out of a day dream. When we are without selfconsciousness, we are not even an I. We are just “being.” When the other eye comes in, in this case the camera, we become in “it” for the camera and we become an I, thinking about the camera and the self , another “it”, that the camera is seeing. What was whole is now broken. What was present is now in time.

Anyway, I resisted the pull of the camera on my consciousness, and I returned to our private embrace. Never again will I stand too close to a ceremony with my clicking, clicking, cold camera eye.

Posted under General Observations, weddings

So much has happened this Christmas and not a thing has moved. We have been no place, we have seen no movies, we have had only a few friends visit, and our presents were few. But so much has happened…inside instead of out. So looking from outside in on us it looks like nothings has happened, but from inside looking out, everything has changed. What am I talking about?

Well, for starters on Dec. 22 I tricked my wife into stopping by the court house where we renewed our wedding vows. We have been married 45 years and I wanted her to know that these vows mean more to me now than every before. We both cried a little during the ceremony, and I’ll have more to say later about what it is like for a wedding photographer to get married. Coupled that with the computer she got for Christmas, which in effect said she was no longer a second class computer citizen in this house, and you can get a hint at what I’m trying to say.

I have a coffee cup that says: Whatever changes we want to happen outside should happen within. So now I know that my marriage is more full of love than it has every been. I feel as if the gold ring has been completed. My cup was right. My outside world changed because my inside changed….and here is the Christmas gift. When you change inside, really change without any gaining desire, you discover that the outside world automatically changes to match the inside.

The two worlds, inside and out…are the same. They always have been and always will be.

Posted under General Observations

Photography is a great teacher for those who want to keep taking better and better pictures. We compare our pictures with those that are beautiful, and the difference pulls us to learn and grow–just as the flower is pulled out of the bulb (to mix my metaphors). And the beautiful thing about photography is that as we learn to take better pictures, we also learn how to see the world around and within. In photography growth must happen within before it shows up in our pictures. A picture is a reflection of what the photographer sees. To improve the pictures, improve the seeing. And the camera shows the way.

The first way to improve the way we look at things is to change from a narrow focus lens to a wide angle lens. All too often in our personal relationships we focus on the conflicting parts–my part and the other’s part. But this is because our lens is too narrow. A narrow lens can only focus on one thing at a time. If we would change to a wide angle lens then all the conflicting parts become part of a whole…and there is our picture! We see the whole picture and the meaning changes. Then with a change in meaning the conflicts dissolve with the act of seeing. No effort is required.

So the next time you find yourself in a no-win-situation, get a wide angle lens and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Posted under General Observations

Christmas was just for the three of us this year, Tilly (my wife), David (son), and me. But small is sometimes the largest, and this Christmas felt very large. I got Tilly a top-of-the-line imac, and as you can see from the picture there was a large amount of surprise and speechlessness. In fact, she said she was so overwhelmed that she was losing her balance, and normally she is a very balanced person. Now a new computer is nice in itself, but that is not what made this Christmas large.

You see in our home business there are several computer stations–mine (which always gets the latest computer, of course), and then David’s, who does video work and must have the next best computer, of course–and then there is Tilly standing at the end of the assembly line catching what ever is left and falls off at her feet. Then she has to change all her files and move into a used computer full of trash left there from the previous occupant. And of course, nothing ever works just right and there is always the feeling of being a second class computer citizen. The Mother of the house gives and gives and quite often gets only the leftovers when the meal is finished.

So in my gift to my lovely wife this Christmas I wanted to say to her that you are no longer at the end of the line scraping the bottom of the bowl. You now have the newest, sharpest, most beautiful computer in the house. This is the end of the line for your being at the end of the line.

Posted under General Observations

At our business here, the rush has been on and now in the remaining days before Christmas most of them have been filled. And for the first time I have time to reflect on what will be happening Christmas day when all those images we have captured here are being given to family members, especially the grandparents. I’m getting a great deal of pleasure knowing that my efforts here are making people happy, and will continue to may them feel good as they look at these images through the years. That is why I do this. I remember when I left my newspaper job in 1994 thinking that I wanted to continue in the newspaper world by publishing my own tabloid. I called it the Positive Image….Well, the newspaper only had one issue, but the dream didn’t die. It just put on a different set of clothes. Now I truly create positive images.

So here in this moment of reflection before this new Christmas, I don’t see or feel that Christmas is a one time thing each year. The “silence” and the “peace” are always here, and so is the joy of giving something positive to the universe. It doesn’t matter how you wrap it or what you call it, the gift is always the same. The gift of Christmas is simply making someone feel good…the secret of Christmas is that you have to feel good yourself in order to give feeling good away.

Posted under General Observations

When senior girls come in for a portrait, it is usually because the school pictures were so awful. “They just said smile and click,” they will say, “and I didn’t even have a chance to fix my hair.” I am their last hope to have a beautiful image for the yearbook and their friends ten years from now who will only have the yearbook picture to help them remember what they looked like. This is an important image, probably next to baby and wedding pictures in rank. Graduation is a great passage and parents measure this picture as the icing on the layers of school pictures they have piled up for 17 years. Behind every senior is a parent whose hopes have also been disppointed.

So when a senior comes in and the the light and the pose come together to produce a great image, I am extremely pleased. It kind of like walking in the woods and fields and coming upon a scene of great beauty. One doesn’t create the beauty, but you have to allow yourself to wander around being open for beauty to happen.

Posted under General Observations

Yesterday I put my first baby in the window for a natural light portrait, and I and his mother were very pleased. Not only did the baby like the window and stayed there for the longest time, much longer than he did with toys on the floor, but the soft wrapping light just made his baby innocence burst forth like a new morning. So many beautiful expressions came and went that I could hardly stop clicking the camera. Moms want to grab and hold these babies for they know that the “terrible twos” are coming. Then the ego arrives and the baby disappears into self-consciousness. Then there is an I looking back with fears and pain that comes from being in time. Babies only know the present moment, but when the ego comes the child has expectations and fears, pains and pleasures…the pairs of opposites. They are now in our world and the battle begins. So for a moment, while they are innocent, we try to capture what it is like to be in the Garden of Eden. We know what it is like to be kicked out and I think deep down in our own forgotten baby we remember.

Posted under General Observations

Today I’m sixty nine and it began where I began 69 years ago in a tub of warm water. I think of these things in my hot tub under the winter sky at 6 in the morning. So now I’m 69…this will be my yin-yang year, the year I dissolve all my opposites like a cube of sugar in hot water. I feel that I have a good start for my days end and begin with the tranquil feeling one gets in a hot tub.

The conflicts we experience in life, the stress and the upsets, are all part of the conflict of opposites. Whenever we fight or try to control something, we automatically make it stronger so that it fights us back or comes back later for another round. The war never ends. The path I want to follow in this year is the path of non-resistance. Instead of stiffness, softness; instead of stubborness, yielding; instead of judgment, forgiveness. This year I will feel and be like the world is my hot tub. Ahhh, what a relaxing place to be born in.

Posted under General Observations

As I approach the age of 69 my mind returns to the images of surfing and how surfing perfectly is not unlike the practice of wisdom. I have come to understand and sometimes experience life as a moving wave of the present moment, and like a surfer we either ride it in perfect balance or fall off into the sea of thought, which then focuses our attention on the past or the future. We still think we are riding the wave but it has long gone to the shore.

So what is wisdom? Wisdom is learning how to get back on the board by recognizing the dryness of thought and the futility of living in the past and future. When balanced on the wave of the present, problems get solved without effort and you feel at home in the world. Everything is just right…just in balance. But the moment thought comes in and says how great it is to be balanced….splash, into the sea you go. Thoughts are very heavy and you shouldn’t carry too many around.

Posted under General Observations