Only after this was downloaded from my camera into iPhoto could I see the world in her eye.  The photographer, the line of field and sky –  the mirror of her eye holding it all.

I don’t think that we really look, most of the time.  There is a meditation called gazing that I have practiced a number of times.  Two people sit face-to-face and gaze into each others’ eyes for five or so minutes.  There is the first nervousness, the twitchy, uncomfortable feeling of being seen, of being naked in a close-up way.  Self-conscious giggles.  At some point there may be a calm, or maybe not.

I am aware of how much of my life is scanning – a minimal taking-in of what I see.  A surface tour.  Not very often sinking into the depths, or awakening the peripheral.  The visual sense is so predominant, and yet so often (for me at least) lacking in detail.

I think that is one of the reasons that I love the camera.  It takes me in and let’s me stay.  Gazing, rapt, voracious even. Framing, capturing, dancing with it – my landscape partners, my subjects.

How do you see?