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.