Deep Photography

Over the past few days I’ve been diving into John Daido Loori’s book, The Zen of Creativity. This morning, I’ve been considering these words,

“When we stand on top of a mountain, gazing at the sunset, we can clearly see the dazzling colours and shapes of clouds draped over the distant mountains. Yet, at the same time, we also feel the warm evening breeze touching our bodies, we smell the dampness of the mountain pines, we hear the sound of the wood thrush, we feel the cool earth under our feet. All of these sensory experiences contribute to our experience of the sunset.

It may be that we have to turn the camera away from the sunset and photograph our big toes, or some other image that evokes the totality of the xperience of the sunset. This is not only true for photography, but for all arts. The poet, the painter, or the composer who is locked only into the visual phenomena of the sunset may miss the heart of what was actually being experienced.”