THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (PDF-2138)

Years ago I fell down the rabbit-hole of close-up camera lenses. In a time of deep personal change I found myself out in the fields at dawn (like each day for six months!) peering through fine lenses at miniature worlds and tiny critters. The daily crush of my life was just too horribly close and I sought relief in the pristine worlds that were still closer yet. Perhaps I was escaping from the turmoil I was experiencing at the time, peering through glass into the still-perfect realms of miniature dioramas and tiny landscapes. You know, I never came back. It was then that two parts of me merged, the visual artist (photographer) in me and the meditator, and I have not been able to communicate since to either group just what I am doing. As I have tried to explain to my fellow photographers, it was never the resulting photos I took that were important, but rather the process of taking them, that ‘time’ each day I spent doing it. I bonded with my eye and the lens and most of all with just the “seeing.” It was the “seeing” that did it.