I am a photographer. I have been for over 40 years - going back to the era of film and chemicals up in a cold roof space. It is, of course, much easier now with quality digital photography. More importantly, digital photography and digital editing allows for editing to be far more sophisticated.
I have long since given up the idea of belonging to a photography club, with its emphasis on rules set by the “experts” and of photography being a competitive activity. I have always been a “Rebel” but now I am a “Rebel with a Cause”.
Over time I have introduced mindfulness into my photography. I have tried to do this in several different ways. Amongst these are the following
Content choice.
I gradually moved towards using mindfulness practices when choosing what to include in my photographs. To do this I started to concentrate on the details in everyday scenes. For example I might spend time thinking about what is involved in an apparently simple object such as a tin of baked beans. I might look at the tin from various angles and levels of zoom in an attempt to identify details in the branding artwork of the tin, including seeking abstract elements from the design of the label around the tin.
Removing the label from the tin allows the detail in the manufacturing to show its detail. Tins are not always a single steel colour - they often have two or three colours of metal within them. They are not made as a single sheet of flat metal. Instead they are composed of ripple metal in patterns designed to give the tin a greater strength.
Obviously there will usually be some sort of food within the tin, with its own colours, textures and granularity.
- Do you smell the tin ( with or without contents !)
- Have you ever dipped a finger in the tin to check out the taste of the contents ?
- Have you ever tried tapping the empty tin with a spoon to hear the noise - then added different amounts of water to hear the difference ?
This all adds to the photographic possibilities of being really mindful when taking an image of something as simple as a tin.
The important thing is to forget the quick “Click, click, click” of many styles of photography and instead take the time to really look at the objects with a view to getting right into their real complexity. Take time to see the play of light on the tin as you move it around. Take the opportunity to touch the tin to feel the texture and the physical nature of the tin. In other words - take your time to do this mindfully.
Editing Photographs
1. There are many pieces of software that you can employ to edit the images you have photographed. These range from the professional tools produced by Adobe etc. Photoshop has been the pro photographers standard tool for decades. It also makes other software for Design, Video, and soon.
2. In the middle ground there are a number of perfectly good software that is far cheaper than Photoshop ( such as Affinity Photo ) which bring the power of editing to the amateur photographer. Once again these tend to have related products for editing for design purposes.
3. Finally there is also the wealth of smaller Apps that each carry out of small range of editing actions that cover the sort of uses that many Mobile Phone users will use - often with a view to putting them in their Social Media applications
All of this software can allow you to take the time and apply the thinking to make the original very different to the newly edited image. For example you can edit out features that take the eye away from the main feature. Background can be removed to allow the eye to concentrate on a single object. Colours can be changed. So much more. All of this can be employed in an attempt to continue to study the main object in the context that your imagination wants to try out.
Here the important thing is not necessarily the final image ( you may produce several from the same photograph, but all different when edited ). More importantly is the thought processes and the concentration that goes into this editing. It is using a mindful approach to studying various aspects of whatever the original object might have been. Hours can be spent thinking and concentrating on even a simple object.
Remember in this approach to photography the goal is the process and the idea of applying mindfulness to that process. It is not simply the final image that the camera captures for you.
This image was created by merging 2 separate photographs that I took. One was a Classic Car taken at a Classic Car Show. The other is a Stately Home which is open to the public. Lots of effort went into cutting out the car and adding ground shadows, semi transparent windows and so on. The photograph of the Stately Home was edited for effect. The aim was to create the right “feel” for that specific type of car. I produced several different background images and styles before creating the combination that you see here. Each step was a serious mindfulness practice in its own right.
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