Photography as Meditation

The goal of med­i­ta­tion is to be­come more mind­ful and aware. For me, it is of­ten an at­tempt to get an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for my sur­round­ings—to see how ut­terly com­plex the world is.

Photography does some­thing sim­i­lar for me. The heft of the cam­era in my hands re­minds me to slow down and take in the view.

My mother is a pho­tog­ra­pher—a great one at that. She’s been in the busi­ness for at least as long as I’ve been alive. She tells me some­thing sim­i­lar: the act of fram­ing a pic­ture is it­self a way to un­der­stand your sub­ject bet­ter.