Videos hosted by Michael Erlewine

I have been taking a break from photography lately, part of a self-reorganization process I am going through, but that does not mean that I can't see. I still tend to see with the eye of the camera which, after all, is just my own eye looking. And what I see is pristine.

Better than looking for designs in nature to photograph is to let my eye just rest and allow the natural designs already there develop in the eye. Nature shows us what she is made of and what her designs are. All I have to do is let the eye rest on what is there before me. The rest just happens as the eye focuses.

I have looked at a lot of photographs in my life, but nothing is as perfect as what I see visually. Aside from the meditative aspects, I guess much of my photography is an attempt to capture what I see (the impression), either for its own sake or to share with others. Do we see the same thing? This is hard to say.

But out walking without a camera, tripod, and all of that stuff is kind of freeing in a way. Certainly, not being required to photograph every exquisite view I come across is refreshing, and I find that I have more time just to let my eyes linger on the flower or leaf while it inscribes itself in my mind. And I do.

The takeaway is that nature without a camera, natural beauty, is even more beautiful and incredible than I remember. If only what I see (and how I see it) could be captured and shared.

Such thoughts find me reaching for my camera, and there I go again. The whole cycle starts over. Here is a photo I took yesterday of a flower in the yard to test out a new small and relatively inexpensive camera, the Nikon 7100 DSLR. Nature is just too cool to ignore, so here I am taking photos again.