16. Seeing

Do you notice how people don’t notice?  How little the average person sees, what they actually spend time looking at … or don’t?  We live in an increasingly selfish world.  We are being bombarded by an array of individualistic, self-contained “tools” on a daily basis. People isolate themselves, they detach, they tune out with their IPods, Ipads, IPhones, laptops.  Their ears are plugged, their eyes are electronically occupied. Their brains are somewhere else, they do not see the world around them. Personal social skills are disappearing at an alarming rate yet there are more social “networking” possibilities than ever.  The younger generations have been struggling for a while to write grammatically correct sentences and now they can’t spell.  They twit abbreviations.

Where has all of the time gone ?  No one has any time anymore and it takes time to see.

Slow down, smell the proverbial roses once in awhile, and open your eyes and look around !  Raise your general level of awareness of the world around you.  See more !  Every day observe, stare [which is another conversation], notice, appreciate, take in MORE !  The world is complex, it moves fast. So are we and so can we, if we take the time.

What if you could not see anything?  What if you woke up tomorrow and you were blind?  What if you KNEW that you were going to wake up tomorrow morning and not be able to see?  Would you look at everything in the world today differently?  Open your eyes.  Appreciate what you have been seeing.  Now take a longer look at all that you have been missing.

 As photographers and artists we are visual people.  We live to see.  To see more is to appreciate more.  To appreciate is to take notice, to learn, be more aware. More awareness gives you infinitely more resources to draw upon, experience, and reference in your work.  To see more not only enriches your daily life, it gives you more to work with in your work!  If you understand this, go see more, and use more.  For all of you others, plug your earphones back in, go along your solitary path, and at least have a dictionary app on one of your electronic devices!  You are missing all that you can see and you are not missing what you do not see.

“Still – in a way – nobody sees a flower – really

it is so small – we haven’t time –

    and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

– Georgia O’Keefe