There Will be Another Sunset – or – “Are my Corners Clean”: What’s your mantra?”

There is an old joke that asks “What’s the last thing to go through a bug’s mind as it hits your windshield?” I will spare you the answer, but it gives one pause to think about what we think when we are at a critical moment – say right before we click the shutter.  When I am stopped on the side of the road,  with my click-o-matic full-frame name-brand DSLR up to my eye, in the throws of lust with the beautiful scene, its warmth rapidly fading as the sun disappears –  What am I thinking? “What’s my subject? Where is it in the frame? Are my corners clean?”

“Are my Corners clean?” — they are not usually where I am looking, they are usually “the background”,  that boring “other” part of the frame without anything “interesting” happening.  That is my attitude anyway, or it is at first. That’s how our brains work,  we are honed by eons of evolution to focus in on that “interesting” subject and neglect every other aspect of our visual field. That’s why we need to spend effort shifting our awareness away from the gorgeous sunset, and towards those niggling little power lines that run garishly across the upper right hand corner, and take two steps to the left.

When I put the camera up to my eye, I think of it as a meditation –  a mantra if you will.

“What is my subject?”

“Where is it in my frame?”

“Are my corners clean?”
By Rogan Lynch

 

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