SEEING- Week 1: 100 Photos a Day

I posted last week about taking Shannon Leith's SEEING class (you can read that post here), and I mentioned in my post that the class is a ten week experience: our first day was a seven hour group class, and our first project was to take 100 photos a day for the seven days of week 1. We then met individually with Shannon for one-on-one sessions to look through the photos, discuss our experience with the project, and filter down to our favorite 5 or 6 images--- the ones that spoke to us the most.

I came to our time with about 700 photos, but neglected to make time to edit the massive quantity of images down to 10-20 favorite images, as she asked us to do prior to meeting. Ever the gracious and adaptable mentor/teacher, Shannon looked through all 700 of my images with me and had me select 3-5 faves from every 100 photos (so, 3-5 for each day I shot). From there, she had me eventually pick out the 5-6 images that spoke to me the most-- the ones that would make me the saddest to delete, the ones that made me feel the most joy and/or mystery. The above six photos are the ones we came to in my mentoring session with Shannon yesterday.

The thing that comes to my mind as I look at these photos is an incredible and deep sense of life and light and stillness. The other thing that comes to mind, when I face the "Publish Post" button below this entry, is fear. There's a good chance people- or even you, reading this- won't "get" these photos. They might look boring or strange or too abstract or mundane. I then have to recall the words Shannon spoke at our group session last week:

"Moving toward your unique vision can be a really lonely experience
because no one sees the world the way you do."

I say that, and I post these photos, to encourage you to step further into your own vision for your life and your art, and yourself. No matter how you live, there's going to be a certain margin of people that won't understand you. Some will try and fail, and some won't even try but will make their own assumptions. A small number might see you and get you, or at least see you and be encouraged and encouraging to you without ever getting you, and that will be a rare and beautiful experience.
Why not then live the life (and make the art, say the words) that help you see the beauty in the everyday? The art and the life that reflect the beauty you see in your everyday? It might be lonely, but it is vibrant, and brave, and alive.

Read more about SEEING here, or visit Shannon's site here.