Perspective Lens

One of the first times I took a 35mm camera in my hand it was a cold, wintery day in New England and I walked around my neighborhood taking pictures of the snowy scenery.  I was very proud of the pictures I took that day even though they were tinted a strange slate blue color and were utterly mundane.  There was just something about seeing the world around me, especially the ordinary that I see daily, somehow becoming captivating through a camera lens.

Over the years as I focused on one phase of my life to another the focus of my camera lens also changed.  I can almost mark each transition of my life through the subject matter of my photography.  What started with beautiful winter and fall scenery shots transformed into shots of my beautiful children which has in turn transformed into shots of my garden.

I often find myself viewing the world around me through the eyes of a photographer.  I see objects and events in sharp, tight frames.  With the advent of digital it seems as though more and more people fancy themselves as photographers, but a true artist never stops seeing the patterns, the colors, the irony that lays within and beyond the ordinary.  On recent road trips I passed the time by snapping pictures along the way; a crooked tree here, a peaceful meadow and a run down old barn on a hill.  As I captured the fleeting scenes I realized that to those travelling this way often these were ordinary shots, things seen so often that they most likely don't even register to the brain anymore.  It is easy to go on about our lives and not see the extraordinary in the ordinary. 

Likewise one object can take on so many dimensions, meanings, angles.  The variety of perspectives is innumerable.

Life is a camera lens.  It is our way of focusing.  It is our perspective.  Only we can find the captivating in the mundane.