35mm | f5.6 | 1/420 | iso 200
Whatever meets your eye is the way.
— Shitou (Zen teacher)
If you want to take photos you gotta have a camera. Someone asked me last night, what the difference is between having a camera and using your smartphone. I thought about it for a moment….well fundamentally speaking….probably nothing.
I have recently spent mumble-de-mumble dollars on a pretty swish camera, but to be honest, Kelly often captures pretty good (I’m not ever going to admit equally good) photos on her iPhone.
But you know….falling down the rabbit hole of apertures and ISO and focal length and lens quality, and digital versus film, and camera envy, and street cred, and monochrome versus colour…. is all definitely a thing. And I find the whole process of manipulating the light of the world with my little box of metal and glass is also definitely a thing.
It’s the whole photographic process that I find therapeutic.
Besides that there are self imposed rules. For example, no peeking at your photos until you get back home. This is known in the business as chimping. No chimping!
Let me see you resist that urge on your iPhone.
Yup. If you want to take photos you gotta have a camera.
So I have been trying to get in the habit of taking my camera with me whenever I head out. This is definitely more inconvenient than sliding a smartphone in your back pocket.
Today, Kelly wanted to visit the garden nursery at Yarralumla. And whilst she wandered amongst the shrubbery, I went for a photo walk.
Someone asked Yunmen, “What is reaching the light?” Yunmen replied, “Forget the light. First give me the reaching.”
— Zen koan.
Again, some OK shots1.
I am very happy with the photo at the top of this post. The light and the textures and the overall composition are really working for me. And the red tree photo really pops.2
Slowly, slowly I feel I am getting my head around how to approach this whole photography jam.
shojiwax.com 
What say you? Please leave a comment!