So last night my Aunt Penny picked me up at 6:30pm and off we headed (with our Tim Hortons coffee of course) to the London Camera Club meeting. I am thinking of joining it and last night they had in a presenter, this John McQuaid and his “contemplative principles” of photography. Aunt Penny is a member and she introduced me to another member last month, at her Kite-flying class. So when she emailed me last night about this lecturer I thought “why not”.

from the ABOUT page on the Miksang Society of Toronto website:

“Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates as “Good Eye”.

“In contemplative photography we work with the synchronization of eye and mind. When eye and mind are in the same place the moment by moment vividness of the visual world manifests and is appreciated fully. This manifestation is spontaneous – a flash of perception – the ordinary magic of the phenomenal world. When one connects with pure perception there is no struggle in making a heartfelt and brilliant photographic image that one can share with others.”

[Miksang Society of Toronto]

Beautiful stuff, check out the gallery link listed above for their gallery of work.

Now, I’m sitting there last night in this Methodist Church on a Thursday night listening to McQuaid talk about their work, and the principles and while he was showing the shots I’m caught by how connected I am to this concept. I do this. I think like that in terms of my photography. There is most definitely a meditative aspect, a zen principle I am attracted to in terms of how I “see”. When I’m composing a shot its more of an idea or a reflection of what it is I want to capture that I’m looking for. I ask “what do I want to capture”? What is it about this moment, or that I’m seeing before me, that I want to have recorded? Or, how can I capture or record what I see? What’s the best way to present it to someone else? It happens in an instant though, its ingrained into me now so that I am attracted to particular lighting or times of day, certain natural frames, or the absence of any reference at all.

There can sometimes be an abstract component to my photographs, I find now. As I was sitting there absorbing this Miksang, I was struck by how these concepts dovetail so perfectly into my own personal philosophies. Fascinating how just one random meeting while flying a kite with Aunt Penny one morning a few weeks ago, can lead to discovering something about yourself a month later. Life can be so random.