Contemplative Photography 10

My approach to contemplative photography (or Miksang) has been quite intuitive. I’ve read everything I can find and am developing my ‘eye’ but it’s hard to describe miksang without it sounding like a riddle.

Miksang, or contemplative photography is more of an ‘approach’ or a ‘way’ rather than a set of rules. To me (and remember I’m only learning), it is about going out with an open heart, open eye and open mind. I clear out judgement and expectation and just see freshly and clearly. Think about your trip to work each morning. Whether it is a drive, train trip or walk to your office, there are things you pass every day without even noticing. Miksang helps you notice all around you and see them, without judgement.

I usually take a walk at lunchtime, mostly just to get me out of the office for a while. I don’t go out deciding to do a photo shoot, if it comes, it comes. I just walk, feel centred, wander and look. I enjoy walking meditation rather than being still.

Most times, something will catch my eye, capture me, fascinate, surprise, delight or jar me. It demands a reaction, it stirs an emotion. I stop and often say “Whoa! Look at THAT”. I hold all judgement about whether it is a ‘good’ subject or a ‘bad’ subject, whether the light or angle or distance is ‘right’. For some reason, it has captured me, if not, I move along. I’m look deeply to see what it was that caught me.
Was it the shape? colour? texture? shadow? light? texture? symmetry? asymmetry? space? angle? incongruity? context?

I don’t try to find a ‘better angle, I don’t zoom, I don’t crop, edit, straighten or do any post editing. I shoot what I see. What you see is what I saw and what captured me. Hopefully the shot shows you things that capture my eye, my heart, my mind.
So, that’s where I am on my journey into Miksang. I hope you give it a go as well.

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If you’d like to find out more about Miksang and the art of Contemplative Photography, check out these links:

Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography
Miksang Society for Contemplative Photography

Contemplative Photography 09

See more posts in this series on my Contemplative Photography page.

Miksang – The Art of Contemplative Photography
Miksang is an art form centred on Contemplative Photography. Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates as “Good Eye” and is based on the Shambala and Dharma art teaching of the late meditation master, artist and scholoar Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche.According to the Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography, miksang “is (at its most basic level) photography concerned with uncovering the truth of pure perception. We see something vivid and penetrating, and in that moment we can express our perception without making anything up – nothing added, nothing missing. Totally honest about what we see – straight shooting.”

My weekly Monday Miksang Offering to you:
“How did it happen that their lips came together?  How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of a hill?  A kiss, and all was said.” - Victor Hugo 1802-1885

If you’d like to find out more about Miksang and the art of Contemplative Photography, check out these links:

• Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography
• Miksang Society for Contemplative Photography
• Miksang Photo Gallery (examples)

Contemplative Photography 08

See my previous posts on my Contemplative Photography page

Miksang – The Art of Contemplative Photography
Miksang is an art form centred on Contemplative Photography. Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates as “Good Eye” and is based on the Shambala and Dharma art teaching of the late meditation master, artist and scholoar Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche.According to the Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography, miksang “is (at its most basic level) photography concerned with uncovering the truth of pure perception. We see something vivid and penetrating, and in that moment we can express our perception without making anything up – nothing added, nothing missing. Totally honest about what we see – straight shooting.“

My weekly Monday Miksang Offering to you:
“There are no nouns in the physical world. There are no separate things in physical world, either. The physical world is wiggly. Clouds, mountains, trees, people, are all wiggly. And only when human beings get to working on things – they build buildings in straight lines and try to make out that the world isn’t really wiggly. But here we are, sitting in this room all built out of straight lines, but each one of us is as wiggly as all get-out.” - Alan Watts – The Nature of Consciousness

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

If you’d like to find out more about Miksang and the art of Contemplative Photography, check out these links:

• Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography
• Miksang Society for Contemplative Photography
• Miksang Photo Gallery (examples)