Review Part III: The Practice of Contemplative Photography

Flashes of Perception
(Continuing my review of the book, 'The practice of Contemplative Photography by Andy Karr and Michael Wood')

There are three stages in taking pictures the contemplative way. The first one is to connect with the flash of perception. This has been such a difficult aspect for me to grasp and when I did, such an exhilarating one. I am still playing with it but stepping into the awareness that flashes of perception happen all the time was just too much for me to contain, so I write.

Looking outside the window

A flash of perception is when sudden gaps in the flow of mental activity occur and you see things just as they are, without labeling or judging them. Remember times when traveling by bus or plane and you suddenly wake up from sleep and see everything vividly? You see everything with brightness, wakefulness and shock? This happens to me a lot. I am dosing off in the car or plane that I am traveling by and when I wake suddenly to what's outside the window I am jolted out of my sleep. I look at everything outside with shock and amazement because everything appears so vivid. The colors pop out, the light shines forth and objects appear clear as crystal. That is flash of perception. It is only after those few moments of flashes do I start labeling what I see (car, greenery, red, mountains, etc) and judging them (great, beautiful, lovely, etc)

The authors in this book say that you need to connect to this flash of perception first. Stay with it and discern it, before forming the equivalent of what you have seen in order to take a picture. However, even before you connect with this flash of perception you need to become aware of its occurrence, because there is no way to  force it to manifest.  No, I was not yet ready to give up on photography, so I kept reading. With an exercise the authors present, I quickly experienced flashes of perception and began to see that they occur ALL the time (but  we gloss over it and move on too quickly). I've got to say, my heart began to sing after this exercise! Its called the Human Camera exercise.

The exercise is a comprehensive one and I would love for you to do it. In brief though, the idea is to use the eyes, tune it and sync it with the mind so that you become aware of the first step to seeing, which is perceiving everything as it is, without categorizing, labeling and judging.

An excerpt from the exercise ''In this exercise you are going to turn around with your eyes closed, suddenly open them like a shutter, and then close them again. This will expose the sensor of experience to the flash of perception. Whatever conceptual processing you do will become obvious in the moments following the flash"

I did the exercise at home, but for me flashes really began to become obvious when I was in the car on my way to work. I closed and opened my eyes every now and then to be really shocked and amazed at these flashes of perception! And slowly I began to become aware of their occurrence without doing the exercise.

I am not sure how to hold on to this flash of perception yet. But that is what the next step working with discernment is all about. For now though, I am loving this stage of connecting with the flash. It is amazing how meditative this exercise is to bring the mind to rest in the present moment, moment after moment.

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