One of the things I love about taking pictures is the different perspectives I gain. It’s simple to stay in my comfort zone, looking at something once and running it through my memory bank of images, landing on what is familiar. However, it is also limiting. With camera in hand, I look at my subject and then for angles that aren’t ordinary or usual to photograph from.
This also serves as a marvelous lesson for me. When I look at a situation from more than one perspective, I find that my curiosity is peaked and a circumstance that once might have seemed mundane becomes newly enlivened.
Interestingly, with all that is going on in the world right now, I feel as if all the perspectives are being swirled around and tossed into the mix with a frequency that at times is exhausting. I find this kind of constancy a bit perplexing. It is as if I have used all of my available memory to date – and more is on backorder somewhere in the universe.
Today, as I thought about that, I felt a bit restless. Not the memory part mind you; the part where there is so much happening so quickly and the adjustment to a new way of seeing the world is changing so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep up.
And then I had this thought:
What if I could look at the myriad things being pushed out and find myself in the perspective of open heartedness. How would it be if my response was to invite the changes without resisting, snapping photos in my mind’s eye of the perspectives that best suit me.
I don’t know if this practice will work, but I feel willing to try it. Not because it sounds like fun necessarily, but because when I thought about shifting my internal perspective, the restlessness abated and I felt peaceful.