Recently I participated in a Miksang workshop, “Opening the Good Eye”, headed by gifted photographer April Siegfried. We practiced a style of meditation designed specifically for photographers: the Miksang system of contemplative photography.

The only way I can describe the method is with a few brush stokes whereby I might convey what it is like. You give your mind’s eye the entire stage. Sit alone somewhere. Close your eyes. Wait for mental clutter to recede. It helps me to concentrate on my breathing.

You gain the sense that this is the only place you want to be.

When there’s a pause free of mental chatter, turn your head to face another direction, and open your eyes. Colors and edges take on presences of their own. Gradually your eyes find a subject that may be nothing in and of itself but, in terms of color, texture, line, or lighting, it reaches out, as if asking to be photographed.

For the “yellow” exercise, I photographed this fire hydrant featuring a chain. I’d never looked at a fire hydrant quite that way before.

For more information about Miksang: http://www.miksang.com

Against the stable foreground trees, the expressway below seems to veer off and up to the right hand side of the image, as if trying for an escape. This composition would not have reached out to me without my sitting in the same spot, basking in the mountain air and letting the place “talk” to me for a while. From Point Park, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

When taking photographs I try to settle into a meditative mode, concentrating on my breathing. Mental chatter and ruminative daydreaming remain but recede in importance. Michael Wood, in his book “Opening the Good Eye”, emphasizes the importance of staying in the same place for hours to give elements in that environment enough time to reach out to you.

As if on cue, after I finished Wood’s book, my car had to be serviced. I was stuck for hours waiting for the job to be done. Boredom, impatience, noise, and hustle made the meditative mode difficult to achieve, but I forced myself, until that car dealership became the only place I wanted to be in the entire world.

After a long while, headlights, taillights, chrome, and shiny painted areas started to reach out to me for attention. Here are my favorites:

1- Blinding reflections of the sun bounce back and forth against a complex array of surfaces inside a headlight. Scrapes and scratches from wear and tear add texture.

2 - A car door reflects a window. It gives me the urge to convert it into an oversized oil painting.

3 - A closeup of a headlight is recognizable as such. I love the wide range between sharp focus and blur created by narrow depth of field.

As a photographic artist, I run aground every now and then. Sometimes I think I might start repeating myself, I’ve come to the end of a series, or I’ve just run out of ideas. A recent experiment to dislodge myself from “photographer’s block” is a flop.

On Facebook, I’m following the Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography.

http://www.miksang.com

Their images are surreal and exquisitely simple at the same time. I want to be close to their subject matter and sit with it for a while. The message: Empty yourself of all preconceived visual frameworks, be still, and let what you see become a part of you.

After immersing myself in these images, I was hurrying off to do routine errands, when this seemed to hit me in the face. Against the interior garage wall, the sun cast reflections and shadows of a break light on my car.

The Prince phenomenon was like a jewel box.  From a distance you see his studio that looks like an elegantly simple white box complex. The “jewels” inside: the full range of sensual experience: music; sound; colors (attire and lighting); mists; taste (he served delicious gourmet); smells (floral, earth, etc.); touch (dancing; kissing), to name just a few. Some guests experienced sensations totally new to them. Musician Prince created original performances/music as easily as he exhaled. How could the rest of us be so inspired, each in our own way?

Inspiration from my panoramic dental x-ray

I’m always surprised when inspiration comes from the most unexpected sources. After my dentist took a panoramic dental x-ray of my teeth and gums, I noticed an interesting segment that might make a nice abstract drawing. I asked him for a copy, which he promptly emailed to me. Here is the x-ray with the segment indicated, and also the segment by itself.