Zen & The Art of Clicking Pictures

I saw a post going around on social media some time ago, asking what is the most useful thing for any photographer, at any given place and time.

I saw many people answer with “camera”, “eyes”, “brain” etc etc.

My answer was an empty mind.

If we just rewind back a few decades and go back to the world of film cameras just for the sake of drawing an analogy, what happens to a photograph that is taken on a film that is already finished?

It overwrites on an existing image and both become trash. What happens to a music you record over a music tape which is already full? (Still in that same era) It just becomes incomprehensible noise.

It’s the same with the world we see outside, and the world that is inside — inside our minds. If we forcibly superimpose the outside world on the already existing inside images, nothing extraordinary is going to come out of it.

So, when you are in some place, be in that place. Don’t let your mind wander to your office, your laundry, your alarm clock, your messy desk etc. Because when you do that, you are seeing only 10% of what is in front of you. Rest you are seeing your office, your laundry, your messy desk etc. That can never be useful.

If you can establish yourself in that space where you see everything in front of, that is the first step towards learning photography.

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Arti Agarwal

Award Winning photographer. Freebird.